


The Deceased

by marmarci



Category: Arashi (Band), Johnny's Entertainment
Genre: Adventure, Adventure & Romance, Clones, Fluffy, Friendship, Love, M/M, Outer Space, Science Fiction, Starship - Freeform, Unrequited Love, romantic, space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2018-03-11
Packaged: 2019-02-22 16:14:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 53
Words: 48,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13170528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marmarci/pseuds/marmarci
Summary: It all begins with the sudden invasion to a clone manufacturer planet, from which three men manage to escape aboard a ship under the name "Arashi"...





	1. Chapter 1

1

 

“You knew that even if this world was meant to be destroyed I wouldn’t leave it. You knew that even if our civilization was conceived just as a mere experiment, I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. I knew you were nothing more than a stranger in a world that wasn’t yours. You knew you had to leave one day. We both knew that what we had, just couldn’t be. And even so…”

Sho swallowed and tightened his hand over Ohno’s cold and rigid hand. 

“Look at us now. You’re the one staying and I’m the one that has to leave. But I don’t want to leave you here. If this is the end of you, make it be the end of me too. Because I can’t live without you anymore. Because I don’t care if this world collapses over me, as long as I’m by your side”. 

“Sho! Whatta hell are you doin’?! We gotta get outa here NOW! We’re running outa time!!” Yelled Nino behind Sho’s back. The dome was about to collapse over them. Half of the laboratory was already buried in rubbles. After the attack, thousands of clones had died. Hundreds of humans too. If they didn’t escape the planet now, they soon would be as good as dead. But Sho wouldn’t let go of Ohno’s hand, no matter what Nino said. He was by no means leaving Ohno to the attackers. Aliens, robots, who cared? There was no way he was leaving his body to them to feast on it. 

“I’m not leaving him!” He yelled in desperation. 

“Sho, he’s already dead!”

“NO! I said I’m not leaving him!” Sho leaned over Ohno’s body and sunk his face on his cold chest. 

“For God’s sake!!” Nino kneeled right by Sho and lifted Ohno’s dead body on his arms.

“What are you doing?!” Stood up Sho in anxiety, looking at how Nino was taking away from him his most loved one. 

“If we take’im with us will’ya leave the fuck outa here?!”

Sho stared at Nino, completely taken by surprise, and nodded bluntly. 

“Done then. C’mon big guy. Outa here. NOW”. 

Nino carried Ohno’s body over his shoulders like a sack and run to the only starship that was still there as if his life was depending on it. What was actually the case, in fact. Sho followed him dodging rubbles and dead bodies. 

For the first time and for all, he was leaving the only world he had ever known. 

He took a look at the starship before putting a feet on in. The attack had been so sudden that no-one had even got the chance to order evacuation. And even if there had been an order to evacuate, Sho doubted it would have included the clones. So many lives. So many deaths. He took a deep breath and followed Nino inside the starship. 

 


	2. Chapter 2

2

 

When Nino boarded the starship carrying a dead body over his shoulders and followed by a native clone, Jun glared at him in disbelief, one hand on the red button that closed the hatch, and the other on his hip.

“Nino? But… What the fuck are you doing? This world is about to burst in pieces and you distract yourself going out to pick up a clone and a… is that a dead man?”

“Shut up and close the gate”, Nino replied sharply, ignoring half of Jun’s complains.

Sho passed Jun by without even taking a glance at him and followed Nino to the cargo deck as if he was trying to steal the dead man back.

Jun sighed in a very bad mood and closed the gate. He leaned over the control panel by the red button’s side and pressed a switch.

“We’re good. Take us out of here, Masa”.

“ _Roger!_ ” A voice replied.

The starship roared and left the ground in quite a harsh but efficient way. And before any of them could have said “Geronimo” they were already in the sky. 

Jun stepped away from the hutch and walked calmly towards the cargo deck, lost in his thoughts. A burning suspicion on his mind. There was something strange about Nino’s behavior. He took a transmisor out of his wrist band and dialed a code. After a beep he put it near his mouth.

“Hey, it’s me. You there?”

“And where the hell would I be in a collapsing world, Captain J?”

Jun seethed and closed his eyes for a second before replying.

“It seems that we have a clone problem and a dead man inside. You know what to do. Cargo deck. Now”. Another beep to end the transmission and Jun lowered his hand. He looked at the door that separated him from the cargo deck. His eyes filled with worry. 

“This isn’t good”, he sighed. “This isn’t good at all”.

 


	3. Chapter 3

3

 

Jun entered the cargo deck just to find a clone holding onto the dead man’s body, which seemed to have been a biological human. As he got close to them, the clone tightened his arms around the corpse, as if he was trying to protect him from Jun. From everything really. Jun stared at the clone quite puzzled. He didn’t know that clones could become so emotional, cry, grieve… or actually feel.

Jun rose his eyes from that scene to face Nino. He got closer to him and examined his face.

“Interesting” was all that Jun said.

“Whatta doing, freak? You’re gonna kiss me or what?” Nino answered back quite aggressively. 

Just then, the starship stoped roaring and trembling, stabilizing itself in a relative silence. 

A voice came out of a speaker on the ceiling.

“We’re safe now, Captain” almost singed a cheerful voice. “Out in space and on our way to a less controversial part of the galaxy, if that even exists”.

Jun smiled slightly while leaning over a panel by the door and pressing a switch. 

“Always the optimist, Masa. The attack may be behind us, but it seems that we have brought some souvenirs on board. Set course and come to the cargo deck as soon as possible”. 

“Do we have aliens aboard??” 

Jun sighed.

“Can you please don’t sound so keen about it? It’s kind of an emergency, you know”.

“Roooger. I’ll be right there”.

Jun ended the communication and faced his three problems again. 

The clone crying over the dead man on the floor. And the impostor.

Jun got close to Nino again, narrowing his eyes, trying to get what was going on there and how had it happened.

“Who are you?” He whispered just a few centimeters away from the impostor’s face.

“What? Have you gone nuts? I’m Nino” he claimed in a proud voice.

“HOLY CRAP!” A sudden voice yelled from behind Jun and Nino. 

They both turned around to it. Jun with a facial expression as serious as it gets. Nino with eyes wide opened and cold sweat running down his spine. 

The owner of the voice planted himself in front of Nino in less than three long and fast steps, then stared at him with curiosity at first, annoyed afterwards.

“Why the hell do we need another me?” He asked his captain while frowning.

“We don’t” replied the captain.

Sho, confused by what he was hearing, rose his head from Ohno’s chest and looked at what was going on around him. Standing next to him, there were three men. The one that had let them inside the starship, and two Ninos.

 


	4. Chapter 4

4

 

Sho was about to say something when another man entered the cargo deck. He was cheerfully humming and smiling, what Sho thought was out of place, given the circumstances. When he posed his eyes on all the people already there, his face changed slightly into disappointment.

“Hey, Captain, they’re not aliens!” He complained.

“Almost” muttered the captain. “We have two clones and a dead man”.

“What do we need a dead man for?” 

“We don’t need it, Masa, it’s just… here. Oh! Shut up and come here to help”.

“Roger”

The man named Masa got closer to the two Ninos straight away.

“Amazing! It’s almost impossible to tell who’s the real one” he said in amazement.

“I’m real, you dumb ass!” Almost roared one of the Ninos, while the other one gave Masa a rap on the head.

“Ouch!! So you’re our Nino. The brute one” Masa said resentfully while kneeling down beside the dead man on the floor and the other clone. And as soon as he did so, he gave them a shout. 

“What the!!!”

“Masa? What is it?” Asked Captain Jun alarmed.

“Captain… Are you guys all blind?! This man is not dead!”

“SAY WHAT?!” Exclaimed all of them at once, particularly the clone Sho.

“I have seen this symptoms before”. Masa concentrated on Ohno’s body and examined his eyes, his pulse and his temperature. “He’s not dead. He’s under the effects of a virus used in some invasion attacks. If we don’t act promptly, we’ll lose him”. 

The two Ninos looked at each other shocked, while Sho was already lifting Ohno’s body from the deck’s surface. 

“Just tell me what I have to do” Sho said in a firm tone. 

“Let’s take him to the infirmary” replied Masa. “Follow me”. 

In less than thought, Masa, Sho and Ohno left the cargo deck like the wind.

Jun stared at his crew member Nino.

“Take this one to the passengers dorms and keep an eye on him”.

“Wait, what? Why me? It freaks me out” said Nino pointing at his clone.

“Someone has to flight this thing and, what can I say? You seem to be the perfect person to take care of yourself” the captain joked as he disappeared trough the corridor.

Nino and Nino stared at each other.

“Damn it! C’mon mini-me. This way”.

“You call me mini-me just one more time and I swear there will be just one of us left”.

“Yeah, me, because if you try anything funny I’ll book you to a private tour to see the stars first-hand”. 

And while bickering with each other, they left the cargo deck through a different corridor than the others.

 


	5. Chapter 5

5

 

Jun was worried. The job hadn’t turned out quite as expected. It was supposed to be an easy one. It was even a legal one, for God’s sake! The first time in weeks. They only had to take some meds to that creepy laboratory planet, wait for a cargo to bring back, and get paid. That was all. But then the invasion, attack or whatever the hell it was, happened and caught them right in the middle. Jun didn’t even know who was attacking. He sighed. They’ll have to go back to see Yonie and report. Yonie was the official that had given them the job. 

“Hey, Captain” said a soft voice behind his back. It was Masa’s.

“Hey, Masa. How’s our dead man doing?” 

“He’s stable, and alive. More than what his clone thought an hour ago”.

Jun sighed remembering the clone crying over the supposedly dead man’s body. That wasn’t ownership. He doubted those two clones belonged to anyone, in fact.

“I don’t know… I don’t think it’s that simple” Jun muttered preoccupied.

Masa got closer to Jun and sat by his side.

“What’s wrong, Jun? I know you, and I know there’s something bothering you”.

Jun smiled at Masa.

“As always, you see through me, huh?” 

Masa posed a hand on Jun’s forearm. Jun continued. 

“It’s just that… There’s something fishy with this job. It was just too easy. Why hire us to bring some meds? Anyone could have done it, and for less money. But they sent us. And then the attack happened. And now we have a wounded man and two clones on board. And…” Jun hissed. “Don’t you think it’s just too much of a coincidence that one of them is Nino’s clone?”

“Yeah” laughed Masa. “As if we needed two of him”. 

“I’m not joking”.

“I know” Masa replied warmly. “I know. But sitting here worrying all by yourself isn’t going to solve anything. Let’s wait and see. They don’t seem to be hostile. We haven’t even properly talked to them neither”. 

“To those things?”

Masa moved away his hand from Jun’s forearm. 

“I can’t believe you’ve just said that!”

Jun saw disappointment in Masa’s eyes. He knew that calling them ‘things’ was a horrible thing to say. But, in that precise moment, he just couldn’t help himself. 

He hated it when plans went wrong. 

He hated it when he didn’t know what was going on. 

He took a deep breath and stood up.

“You’re right, Masa. Okay. Let’s have a chat with them, then”.

“That’s my Captain!” Masa cheered up.

“Yes, yes” mumbled Jun already heading to the corridor, his face a little less tense than before.

 


	6. Chapter 6

6

 

Three men and two clones looked at each other half in curiosity, half in fear. Waiting for the one that would break the silence. The man that went under the name of the Captain had gathered them all in a kind of living room by the kitchen. 

“So” said Nino the clone, “Who talks first?”

“That’s going to be you. Thanks for volunteering. You can start” Jun took advantage of Nino’s clone cheekiness and used his impertinence to end that stupid silence. 

Nino’s clone twisted his lips but admitted his defeat. 

“What da you wanna know?”

“First of all: Who are you three and why did you board my ship? Second: How come you’re just like one of my crew members? Three: What the hell happened on that planet? And last but not least: Why do you have to talk in that weird accent?”

Nino’s clone chocked at the very last part of the Captain’s chain of questions.

“What’s wrong about how I speak?! I speak colloquially! Like men on Earth do!” Nino’s clone defended himself.

The three biological humans stared at the clone in disbelief.

“Men on Earth?” The biological Nino asked skeptically. 

“Yeah. I’ve seen’em in movies”. 

“Oh my…” Nino took a hand to his forehead. “What the hell do they teach clones these days?” He muttered.

Sho was sitting by Nino’s clone side and, until now, he hadn’t been paying much attention to the conversation. His gaze was fixed in the direction where the infirmary was. He knew Ohno was alive. He knew he wouldn’t wake up in at least five hours, but even then… He didn’t want to be separated from him. He didn’t want him to wake up and be alone. He was completely absorbed in those thoughts until he heard biological Nino’s words. 

“What do you mean?” Sho asked him out of the blue.

“We don’t have time for this now. My ship, my rules. You two, answer my questions. You can talk about Earth or whatever nonsense you want later. Let me repeat the first question again: Who are you and why are you on my ship?” Jun’s voice sounded harsh. 

“Nino and I are clones born and raised in A-3X-4, also known as Lab Alfa. Ohno… Doctor Ohno was assigned to our unit about a year and a half ago. He… He was the only one that seemed to truly understand what was really going on there. He saw us for what we were. I know that maybe you just see us as mere things, but he knew better…”

Nino’s clone cleared his throat and put a hand over Sho’s shoulder to make him stop while comforting him. Nino’s clone continued talking in his place. 

“So, yeah, we were close with the Doc. I was his pal, and he… well, you can guess the rest. Sho, this man, was the perfect clone. Always ready to help and all that, y’know. But I wanted to escape… To show all the world that we are humans too and that we can do as humans do. We are not mere things incapable of feeling”.

“What happened to your colloquialism?” Nino mocked his clone.

“Not now, Nino” the captain reprimanded him. “Go on”.

“I wanted to escape, but I didn’t know how I was going to do it. And then you came to our world. I just couldn’t believe my luck when I saw _myself_ getting off the ship. My doppleganger. It was an opportunity in a million. Just too good to let it pass me by. So I planned my escape…”

“On my ship” completed Jun. “Let me guess, in the ship’s hold?”

Nino’s clone nodded. Jun sighed.

“I see. And then the attack happened and caught you all in the middle of your little lives, screwing his romance with the doctor, your escape plans, and my crew’s job”. Jun pattered his right knee. 

“For the second question, Captain, I can’t give you an answer, for I have no clue. I was as surprised to see another _me_ , as he was moments ago when he saw me on the cargo deck. The same goes for the third question. I too want to know what happened to my planet” concluded Nino’s clone.

“The planet you wanted to leave at all costs?” Pointed out Nino.

“Yes. But my planet after all” answered Nino’s clone with sad eyes. “All those lives… lost”. 

After his words, reality hit them again. Silence fell as their beloved Space seemed now to be a little more darker than before. 


	7. Chapter 7

7

 

Jun was the first to talk again. 

“So you used us to escape a planet condemned to annihilation. I can understand that” Suddenly Jun stood up. “I have to make some calls and inform about what we’ve seen and about the… survivors. Masa, come with me, I need to have a word with you”. 

Sho stood up as well, with shaking hands and a worried face. 

“Doctor! Wait a moment. Can you…? Could you tell me if doctor Ohno is going to be all right?” His face was that of a man about to collapse out of anxiety. 

“Doctor?” Masa asked back rising his eyebrows in surprise. “You mean, me?”.

“You treated doctor Ohno before so I assumed…” Sho explained himself in a low voice.

“Oh, that! Err, you see, I’m not a doctor. Actually, I’m this ship’s pilot” Masa smiled trying to sound tactful. 

“But you treated him…” Sho was confused.

“You see, I do use to fix these guys from time to time when needed, but I couldn’t be considered more than an emergency nurse, at most. But don’t worry! Your doctor is going to be all right. I’m not a doctor but I’ve dealt with that kind of attacks when I was a kid. My world was invaded too, you see”. Masa got closer to Sho and put a friendly hand on his shoulder. “He’ll be fine. I promise”. Masa smiled warmly at Sho and nodded in an attempt to cheer him up. 

It worked. Sho nodded back.

“Can I stay by his side?”

“Err, sure. But he won’t wake up in at least five or six hours…”

“I don’t mind. I just want to be by his side”.

Masa looked at his captain looking for his permission.

“Go by his side” said Jun warmly. 

Sho rushed to the infirmary at once. 

“And what do I do with this?” Nino asked just a second before Masa and Jun left the room, pointing at his clone.

“I don’t know. Take him to the engine room or play cards with him. I don’t care. Just keep an eye on him” said Jun absent minded.

“Are you afraid I may run away?” Nino’s clone blurted out.

“No. I just don’t trust you. Nino. Eye on him”. 

Jun and Masa left the room leaving the two Ninos looking at each other quite uncomfortable with the situation. After all, not every day you got to meet someone exactly like yourself.

“Engine room? Cards?” Teased Nino’s clone.

“Let’s grab something to eat. You clones eat, right?”

“You biologic guys have a brain, right?”

Nino laughed out loud. In spite of himself, he kind of liked the cheeky guy. Or clone. Or whatever he might be. 


	8. Chapter 8

8

 

As soon as Masa entered the cockpit, Jun closed the gate behind them. 

“Jun, what’s wrong?” Masa asked right away.

Jun leaned his forehead on Masa’s shoulder for a bit. As if he had been needing that tiny moment of closeness to be able to relax and think. Masa caressed Jun’s head and let him stay like that for as long as he wanted. 

Jun rose his head and regained the usual serious look in his eyes. 

“There’s something wrong, Masa. I have a hunch”. 

“What do you want me to do” Masa said, already sitting in front of the control panel. 

“Search for ships’ signals, distress calls and emergency announcements”.

“Roger!” 

Masa did as his captain had commanded, and as he got hold of the information, he told Jun, growing in anxiety by the moment.

“Jun, you were right. There’s something wrong going on. Very wrong”.

“What can you tell me?”

“There’re no traces of any other ships of the Federation, nor rogues or burglars. It’s almost as if the Space had turned mute and deaf. Wait! I found something!” Masa typed as fast as possible until a sound graphic appeared on the floating screen. 

“Red Alert. Red Alert. Evacuate. Evacuate. We are under attack. I repeat, we are under attack. The whole Solar System of Jenova is being destroyed. Evacuate. It’s vital that all the population evacuate the System. Red Alert. Red Alert…”

“Holy shit! You’ve got to be kidding me! The whole solar system?!” Jun yelled as he punched the wall on his left. “Masa, get us out of here right now”.

“Roger!” 

Jun activated a side panel on the main console.

“To all the crew and people on board. Find something to hold on to. We’re warping the hell out of this System. Beware your heads and… well, try not to die hitting each other”. 

Masa stared at Jun in amusement.

“That wasn’t very Captain-like, you know”.

“We’re running away from an invasion because this whole Solar System is kind of about to be destroyed. There’s no room for formalities”. 

Masa laughed. 

“All right, then. Where to?”

“Home. Where else?”

“To the eternal dust and land of unfriendly folks. Roger”.

Masa laughed out loud and made the ship warp a few galaxies away. In no time, Space went back to what they were used it to be. Ships, signals, asteroids and lots of places to land. Home. The place where legal jobs were scarce and rarely paid. Space least welcoming corner. 

“Okay. We’re good. Home, sweet home” announced Masa.

Immediately, Jun communicated to the rest of the ship that they could relax, then ended the transmission as soon as he could.

“Masa, call Yonie. Time to tell him the job went wrong” the captain sighed.

Masa typed something but an error beep kept appearing on screen. 

“I can’t contact him, captain”. 

“Try searching the local news” said Jun, leaning over Masa’s shoulder.

Intergalactic Channel appeared on the screen. They were informing about the invasion of Jenova System and its destruction, and about how every living being there was now completely exterminated. 

Masa and Jun looked at each other. 

“Give me the list of deceased on the Intergalactic database” Jun glanced at Masa in a short distance. “Look for us” he added. 

Masa typed a series of codes until he entered the database. His eyes widened as he read the entries concerning the crew members. 

“Captain… It seems that we’re all officially dead”. 

“I see… What about doctor Ohno?”

Masa typed again.

“He’s… officially deceased too. And for what it seems, he is considered a war instigator…”

“Shit!”


	9. Chapter 9

9

 

“So, do you have a name, an identification plaque or something like that?” Nino asked the clone while pouring some coffee colored liquid in a brown mug. 

“I see. So you are one of those biological jerks who think that we clones are nothing more than things you can play with, right? I understand. May I do something for your highness?” Replied the clone in a bitter voice. “Of course I have a name!” Suddenly yelled then.

“Okay, okay, there’s no need to make a fuss of it. Geez! Right, then, what’s your name?”

“Nino”.

The crew member Nino, the human, rose his eyebrows in disbelief and stared at the clone with a sarcastic look in his eyes.

“Oh, do you really?”

“Yes, absolutely” answered the clone, unaware of Nino’s sarcasm. 

“Oh, come on! You’ve got to be kidding me! They gave you my name? I can’t believe it! The gene donation was supposed to be anonymous!” He suddenly shouted.

“What? No. No-one gave me this name. I chose it” the clone answered back in quite a defensive and yet proud way. 

“Sorry, mini-me, but I think I don’t get you”, biological Nino got closer to the clone and sat right in front of him on a stool by the kitchen counter. “How the hell did you find out the name of your gene donator? And why did you want to use the same name? Don’t you want to be an independent human being or something of the kind? What did they call you before you chose my name?”

Nino’s clone sighed and lowered his eyes, staring now at the coffee-like liquidinside the mug in from of him.

“They didn’t call me anything. At least not by something that could be considered a proper name. I guess you don’t know much about clones or what was going on on my planet”.

“Nothing at all. Never cared much, to be honest. So, make me understand, will you?”

Nino’s clone sighed.

“There are… sorry. There were different units on Alfa Lab, each one of them in charge of a different use for the clones. The main purpose of the Lab was to create customizable humans who could adapt more easily to low to moderate hostile environments. These clones were made stronger, faster and smarter, so they could accomplish the task for what they’d been created: terraform new planets. We make way for the so called _true_ humans, as you may say”.

“Wow, that’s quite… something to think about. What happen to the clones if the environment is more hostil than thought and the new land can’t be terraformed?”

“They die, and nobody gives a damn about it” Nino’s clone replied immediately.

“Oh, shit…” Nino sipped his coffee-like liquid. “So you and your friend were made to adapt to some new planet?”

“Sho and myself? No, not us. Your see, the clone business was such a profitable one that it expanded beyond anyone’s expectation, and soon enough they started to replace the human workers in shitty jobs with clones as well. For example, I was in charge of all the informatics systems in my unit. I’m smarter, faster, and I make no mistakes. But as I’m a clone, they kept giving me maintenance jobs and rubbish like that. Oh, and to answer your question from before, they used to call me ‘clone’, ‘thing’ or ‘doll’, just so you know”.

“So, bored and pissed off, you entered the system to find a way to break free. Am I right?”

“More than that. I wanted to know. I wanted to learn. And I wanted an identity. So I hacked into the system and found you, the donor. I took your name and learned all what was there to learn about how our planet of slaves worked”.

“And then decided to runaway from it”.

Nino’s clone nodded while Nino stared at him, lost in his thoughts.

“But, I donated my genes about less than a decade ago, but look at you! You look my age! How’s that even possible?”

“We’re grown like veggies until we’re adults. It’s called Accelerated Growth Program. In my case: they made me grow until I was twenty-five years in five Standard Time years. Believe me, it’s not exactly a pleasant experience. It hurts”. 

Nino twisted his lips as if he himself was feeling the pain. He then looked at the clone under new eyes. He had never thought too much about clones, in fact, they kind of creeped him out. But now that he was sitting in front of one, he really had to try hard not to see him as another human being just like him. 

“Why are you so close?” Nino’s clone asked alarmed as Nino was getting close to his nose while examining him. Nino hadn’t notice it himself. He stepped away at once.

“Sorry. And, I’m sorry, but you can’t keep that name. Nino, I mean. There’s already one Nino here, and having two would be very confusing for us all”.

“Do you want to give me a serial number or a bar code?” Answered back the clone, half hurt, half tired of being treated always as a thing. 

“Nope. I want to give you a name”.

Nino’s clone rose his eyes taken by surprise.

“How do you feel about Kazuna?” Nino asked suddenly, his hand under his chin.

“Kazuna? It actually sounds like a real human name…” Nino’s clone looked at him in suspicion. He was expecting Nino to make fun of him, not to actually try to be somehow a nice guy.

“Of course it sounds legit. It’s my name”.

“But you are Nino, right?”

“Yeah, well, partially. I kind of lied a bit when I made the gene donation thing to the Federation” he smirked. “Remember what my file said, mr. hacker?”.

“Nino K.”

“That will be the short for Ninomiya Kazunari. Not many know that, though. They all call me Nino, or sometimes Kazu. But nobody ever calls me Kazuna so… you can keep it if you want”. 

“Are… you sure?” Nino’s clone, from now on and onwards just about to become Kazuna, looked at Nino almost in watery eyes. “Are you really sure?”

“All yours. It will be easier this way. Kazuna”. 

Suddenly, a static noise came out of a speaker on the ceiling ending the man and clone chat. 

“Your captain speaking. We seem to have gotten ourselves into kind of a situation. Every person aboard please gather in the kitchen as soon as possible”, static noise again. “Oh, yeah. The doctor Ohno is obviously dismissed, and that ‘please’ wasn’t more than a courtesy. Everyone: Kitchen. Now”. 

The static noise stoped and Nino and Kazuna looked at each other.

“C’mon! What now?” Complained Nino. 


	10. Chapter 10

10

 

“Okay. So here’s the thing: We’re all dead”.

The chatter died in an instant in the face of Captain Jun’s words.

“Say what??” Nino stood up puzzled and walked the room aimlessly.

“Simple and plain as that. As it seems, we’re all officially dead, including the doctor there lying in the infirmary. Oh, and by the way, said doctor is considered a war instigator by the Federation. Or was. Whatever”. Jun was leaning against the kitchen counter, arms crossed over his chest and a much crossed look in his eyes. 

“Does that go for us too?” Asked Sho in a skeptic tone.

“No. And yes. There isn’t a public database of clones, but according to the news and all the official statements we’ve found so far, the whole Solar System of Jenova is completely destroyed and all the living beings that were there exterminated. So, yes, I guess that makes you dead too”. Jun was sharp, but not hostile. There weren’t the clones on board what put him in a bad mood.

“But I don’t understand”, intervened Sho again. “How can they say that doctor Ohno was a war instigator? That makes no sense! He was only doing his job and trying to understand us. Well, he was indeed trying to delve into the…”

“Exactly” the captain interrupted him. “There are things you shouldn’t investigate too much. I think that your doctor dug too deep, and maybe found something that the Federation didn’t want to be known. So now that he’s left for dead, they saw the perfect chance to use him as their scapegoat”.

Silence fell upon the crew and the clones. 

“The reason for the invasion…” began to say Nino.

“I don’t know anything about that, and I’m not even sure if it is connected or not to the ‘doctor instigator thing’. Let’s not jump into conclusions. I just know that we’re sorted as dead men. Deceased. All of us. And that they have made it very quick to erase us from the living folks database. Too quick, in my opinion”. 

“And Yonie?”

Jun chuckled while shaking his head.

“No trace of the guy. Vanished”.

“So what do we do now?” Nino asked, taking a sit and stoping his aimless walk through the room.

“We wait and see. We dig into it. And we hide. At least until we find out what’s going on” Masaki said in a reassuring voice. 

“And what’s going to happen to us?” Kazuna asked, pointing with his chin to Sho as well.

“For the time being, you can stay in my ship. As long as you make yourself useful, that is to say”.

“I’m really good with electronic devices of any kind” said Kazuna.

“I speak most of the languages used in and out of the Federation. And I have some muscles too”, Sho added shyly. 

“We could definitely use that”. Jun looked in the direction of the infirmary. “And a proper doctor could suit our ship pretty well too”. 

“Thank you, captain. We won’t make you regret it” said Kazuna firmly.

“Yeah, you better. By the way, do you two have names? One Nino is more than enough”.

“Hey!” Nino complained.

“In fact, I do have a name… Not Nino, I mean. I’m Kazuna”.

As soon as the captain heard the clone’s new name, he turned straight to Nino with a smirk on his face.

“I see… Welcome aboard Kazuna. And you, do you have a name?”.

“I’m Sho”.

“Welcome aboard Sho. I’m Captain Jun, this is Masaki and, as you may already know, he’s Nino. Okay, crew. So let’s get the hell out of here. We don’t want any of our old friends to find us here, all dead and floating inside a no longer registered ship”. 

“Captain”, called Sho just in time before Jun left the kitchen. “May I ask the name of this ship?”

Jun smiled widely and gave a soft elbow to Masaki before leaving for the bridge.

“It’s called ‘Arashi’” answered Masa in his place, and as he did, his face shoneclear and warm. Just like freedom.


	11. Chapter 11

11

 

Suddenly, loud and clear, a repeating beep came from the infirmary, stoping Masa on his way and making Sho jump off the chair in which he was sitting.

“Ohno!” 

Masa passed him by on his way to the infirmary, running as fast as his legs let him. Sho followed him immediately and surpassed the pilot in no time.

When they reached the infirmary, Sho almost collapsed on its gate. 

Out of pure relief. 

Ohno was on the stretcher, the cable that connected him to the vital sign monitor in his hand, and a confused look in his eyes. But he was alive. So, so very alive. Sho held his tears and rushed to the stretcher just to stop brusquely when he got half a meter away from Ohno’s head.

“Sho!” Ohno exclaimed as soon as he saw him. Ohno still looked a little drowsy, and didn’t seem to be able to fix his eyes clearly, but he gazed at the clone as if nothing else in the Universe mattered anymore. 

Sho made the distance between them disappear, and held the doctor’s hands between his with great care. 

“Are you okay?” Sho extended his right hand and softly caressed Ohno’s forehead and left temple. 

“Sho, what is this place? Why am I on a stretcher?”

“Never mind that now” Sho was fighting with all his might to not burst into tears. But Ohno was alive. His lover, his friend, his Ohno was alive. 

“Sho, what’s wrong?” Ohno caressed Sho’s cheek with his left hand, and as he did, Sho caught it and pressed it to his face. To feel Ohno’s warm hands. The warmth of a living man. 

“I thought you dead”. His voice broke and his tears run uncontrollably through Sho’s face. “I thought I had lost you”. 

Ohno rose his arms and put them around Sho, bringing him closer to himself, then sinking his face in Sho’s neck, rubbing their cheeks on the way.

Frozen as a statue, Masa looked at the two lovers in pure amazement. He had never seen something like that. No, that wasn’t completely true. He had seen that same tender weakness in someone else. The urge to be as close as possible. The eyes that become unable to see anything else except of one another. The soft caresses. The loving hands clinging to one another. The feeling of abandon of oneself in the presence of the other. Masa had seen all that before. Masa had felt it all. Every time that Jun run to him. Every time he had left his guard down, when alone in his room, he had shown Masa what was under his tough eyes and behind the tough captain mask he always wore.

Masa heard a noise to his right. It was Nino, standing still next to him. He had probably come to the infirmary to make sure everything was okay, but instead of an emergency situation, he had found something quite different: The proof that clones, unexpectedly, could feel, be emotional and actually… love.

“Fascinating” Said Masa, incapable of taking his eyes away from the couple before him.

“Don’t you think it’s a little… creepy?” Nino asked by his side. Still reluctant to admit that all that he had always believed about clones was wrong. He turned to Masa, who was still looking at the two men in the infirmary, smiling warmly and with dreamy eyes. 

“I think it’s beautiful”.

Nino looked at him half puzzled, half pensive. 

“Ohno seems to be okay now, so… I’ll come back later to check on him. As for now, let’s give them some time”. And as soon as he had said that, Masa gently grabbed Nino by the arm and both left the infirmary. 

 


	12. Chapter 12

12

 

A static hissing coming out the speakers in the ceiling welcomed Masa and Nino as soon as they got to the kitchen area, where a curious Kazuna was now investigating how the meal cooker worked.

“Masa, I need you on the bridge. Come as soon as possible. And bring Nino with you” they heard the captain’s voice say. Then the speaker went silent and the static ceased. 

Nino gazed at Kazuna sideways and then turned to Masa with a worried look on his eyes.

“Do we go and leave him here alone just like that?” Nino whispered to Masa’s ear.

“I’ve heard that” said Kazuna, turning his whole body around to face the two men. “Scientifically modified, remember?” he added pointing at his ears. “Don’t worry, I’m not planning on destroying the ship or to take over it, if that’s what you’re thinking”. 

The comment of the clone made Masa smile. 

“C’mon, Nino, it’ll be okay. Let’s go. We better not keep the captain waiting. He’s in a very bad mood today”, Masa said while smiling now at Nino.

Nino took a deep sigh and nodded reluctantly at Masa just a second before leaving the kitchen area. 

“Please, don’t take it to heart. He’s not always like this” Masa told Kazuna. “Nino isn’t in a very good mood either” he whispered as if he was talking about something highly confidential. Kazuna looked at Masa quite amused just in time to see him winking at him right before heading to the bridge after Nino. 

Out of the three crew members of the “Arashi”, Kazuna liked Masa the best. He was the only one who wasn’t treating them like potential killers or inferior human-like beings. That was definitely a plus to get to like him, Kazuna thought. He seemed to be a nice guy. 

Meanwhile on the bridge, Jun stared at his crew while leaning on the wall across the only entrance, arms crossed over his chest, and a serious look on his face. As soon as he had entered the cockpit Masa sat on his pilot chair, which he had bought himself some years ago on a moon orbiting an inhabited planet, the best intergalactic market of the system, and was now spinning on it. Opposite him, Nino was leaning his forearms on the back of the copilot chair in a relaxed pose. 

“Well then, captain. What is it?” He was the first to talk.

“I’ll go straight to the point: the clones and the fishy doctor we unexpectedly have on board. We’ve got to decide what to do with them”.

“But captain!” Masa retorted at once, “Are we not keeping them?”

“They’re not dogs, Masa!” exclaimed Nino. 

“The point is” called for attention Jun using a higher tone. “Do we trust them good enough to let them stay on the ship?”

Nino kept silent thinking about Jun’s question, while Masa answered right away.

“Of course we do! Why wouldn’t we?”

“Err, maybe because they sneaked on to my ship during a far-too-goddamnedsudden invasion and because, as it happens, they also brought aboard a dead manwho is actually not dead at all and who, in fact, is considered a war instigator?” Jun rose his eyebrows so much and used such a sarcastic tone while talking, that neither Masa nor Nino were much motivated to give him an answer. Jun was really pissed off for not controlling the situation, and so it showed on every gesture he made.

“They were running away from a collapsing world, captain. I would’ve done the same, if you ask me. Wouldn’t have you?” Softly raised his voice the pilot.

“Hell, yes, I would’ve!”, Nino answered then right away. 

Jun took a moment before finally answering Masa’s question.

“I would. You know I would” he muttered at last, sighing while doing so. But then he suddenly exploded. “It’s just that, I don’t know… All this whole mess just bothers me. The fact that we were on that planet precisely when the invasion happened; the fact that the guy slipping in my ship was precisely Nino’s clone; the fact that we know nothing about them or the doctor. And even more, the fact that it seems that we’re all dead according to the intergalactic database”.

Masa smiled at Jun warmly, unable to control himself anymore after the romantic scene he had just seen in the infirmary. He understood Jun’s anxiety about the whole situation, but watching him going so emotional about it just made him want to hold him tight. Not that he could in a situation like that, so he just had to resort to words. 

“I’m sure that as soon as we look into it we’ll find out that it’s nothing more than a mistake; that we just had bad luck. That we just were on the wrong place at the wrong moment, that will be all. And then we’ll feel disappointed it wasn’t anything more than that. But, you know what? Thanks to our bad timing for today we saved three lives, Jun” Nino cleared his throat behind Masa and he noticed he had called the captain how he used to do it when they were alone, “I mean, we saved three lives, _captain_ ” he corrected himself immediately. 

Nino rolled his eyes. Did they really think he hadn’t notice in all these years?

“Yeah… you could be right. It’s just that… If only I could find Yonie…” the captain mumbled on as if he hadn’t notice Masa’s slip of the tongue. 

“There has been an invasion and a destruction of a whole solar system, no wonder things are all messed up. Let’s wait for a few days and then try again to contact Yonie and work out our living-dead problem when things calm down. Okay? In the meantime, why don’t we just keep an eye on those three and find out as much as we can from them?” Nino said in an irrefutably sensible way. 

“Yes, that’s what I was thinking too” said the captain in amazement. 

“And” rushed to add Nino, “we can make them work while they’re here. I wouldn’t mind to have a cook, nor someone who helped me with the freaking engines as it happens. They’re old and whir way too much for my peace of mind, as I’m always telling you, captain J”.

“Yeah, you’re quite noisy about it, but it’s all we’ve got now” Jun uncrossed his arms and put his hands on his trouser’s pockets. “Okay, if you two are fine with it, I’ll give them a vote of confidence then. But I don’t want to have them milling around my ship just now, so, Nino, Kazuna is working with you. Keep an eye on him”. 

“Again?” Nino complained, being completely ignored by Jun.

“I’ll take care of the clone Sho and doctor Ohno” continued the captain.

“And I? What do I do?” Masa asked excitedly while spinning on his chair.

“Keep us in the sky”.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, captain J! That’s way too lame, even for you” Nino laughed out loud.

“Okay, just wanted to play it cool for once” the captain laughed as well. “Masa, take us to see B’ugsnak. I want to know what the hell happened to Yonie and why we’re deceased to the database”. 

“Roger!!”

“I’ll go check on my potentially evil me” joked around Nino before leaving the bridge to Masa and Jun. Once he was nowhere to be seen, Jun got closer to the pilot and asked him with a softened voice. 

“Masa, tell me I’m not on the wrong” he almost whispered. 

“They’re not bad people. I can tell” Masa turned his head to look directly at the captain with reassuring eyes. “I’m proud of you for letting the two of them stay on the ship. I know how you’ve always felt about clones and the like”.

“Yeah” Jun managed to answer low spirited. “After all that has happened in the last few hours, who knows if I shall have to rethink my old beliefs”.

“Their presence on the ship doesn’t necessary have to change anything. That said, I don’t think it’s a bad idea what you’ve just said. But only if that’s what you want…” Masa bit his lower lip before continue talking, “Jun”. 

The captain tried to look away from those clear eyes, but when it came to Masa, Jun knew that he just couldn’t win against his feelings. He gazed back at him and caressed his cheek with the back of his hand. He was just too precious for him. His advices, his encouragements, his tolerance. His love. A love that Jun had always thought he didn’t deserved. 

“I’m glad you’re here” Jun whispered tenderly. 

“Me too”. And there was much more meaning on these two words than could have been in a whole book. 

Jun smiled at Masa, shyly kissed him on his forehead and stepped away from him, leaving him to his duty while he put himself to his. 

And while Masa was taking the ship to the other corner of the galaxy and Nino was entering the kitchen area grumbling, Jun left the bridge and headed straight to the infirmary. 


	13. Chapter 13

13

 

As soon as Nino entered the kitchen area, Kazuna tried to call his attention.

“Just in time! Do you know how this thing works?” He asked pointing at the meal heater.

“You put food inside and warm it up. And you’re supposed to be the superior clone?” Nino rose his eyebrows amused.

“We don’t have these older models at the lab” Kazuna began to say but he stoped himself at once. “I mean, we didn’t…”

“Yeah, sorry for being such an old fashioned crew, mister ultra-human, but we have work to do, so leave the heater for later”.

“We have… what?” Kazuna left what he was doing to pay full attention to Nino.

“Yeah, well. As I believe you heard the captain say before, you can stay on board as long as you make yourselves useful, what translated to non-captain-like tongue means: move your ass and help me with the engine”.

“But” Kazuna looked confused, “you’re letting us stay? For real?”

“No. Actually this is just a dream and right now you’re floating into the space, freezing to death” Nino tried his best to sound as serious as he could. 

“No, I’m not!” Answered Kazuna in a slightly childish way, which not only caught Nino by surprise, but also amused him.

“Oh, is that so? Then I guess that the other alternative has to be the real one, which means: move your ass and come help me fix the freaking engine, because yes, you’re staying on this old fashioned ship, and yes, that’s for real”.

Nino glared at Kazuna almost loosing his temper, when suddenly something unexpected happened that changed Nino’s mood completely. Kazuna had gotten closer to him and was now smiling like he had never seen himself smile in the mirror before. Kazuna was smiling out of relief, excitement, and pure happiness. 

Nino frowned, not being used to see himself showing an emotion like that on his own face. 

“Then, I’m ready to fix anything you tell me to. And… thank you!” said Kazuna with a radiant smile on his face.

“Don’t thank me, thank the captain, he’s the one that has decided that you’ll be working with the great Mr. me” Nino was feeling so overwhelmed by Kazuna’s reaction that he had to resort to joking to get by that strange situation. 

“Great! Then maybe you can tell me stories about the Earth as we work together!” Suddenly widened his smile Kazuna. 

That broke Nino’s heart. Because now, he would have to be the one breaking that smile. For what he had heard from the very Kazuna hours ago, he guessed that the clone thought the Earth was still there, somewhere. 

“I can tell you all I know about it, but I’m afraid that you won’t like it” he answered while they covered the distance between the kitchen area and the engine room. 

“Are you talking about the wars which almost destroyed it?” Kazuna asked. 

Nino entered the engine room followed by the curious clone.

“I’m talking about the war that finally managed to achieve exactly that” Nino didn’t want to look at Kazuna while pronouncing those words, but he just couldn’t help it. He thought he would be able to easily deal with the shadow of disappointment on his own face, but when his eyes met Kazuna’s, it wasn’t disappointment what he saw, it was grief-stricken sorrow. 

Nino automatically regretted his choice of words, feeling now bad for the clone. And while looking at Kazuna’s saddened face, Nino also remembered Sho’s emotional reunion with the doctor. 

Had he been wrong all his life? Did clones actually felt emotions as human beings did?


	14. Chapter 14

14

 

Jun wasn’t prepared for the scene that was waiting for him in the infirmary when he entered the room nonchalantly. Just as close as it was physically possible, the clone Sho had placed a chair next to the stretcher where the doctor was lying. They were holding hands affectionately while speaking in a low voice, smiling at each other and completely unaware of anything in the room surrounding them, that including Jun. 

To make himself noticeable, Jun cleared his throat and entered the infirmary purposefully, trying to make more noise than needed while doing so. 

“Captain Jun!” Exclaimed Sho as soon as he saw him. “Ohno, this is the captain of this ship. The one I’ve told you about”. 

“Captain” greeted the doctor looking straight at Jun’s eyes while trying to sit up, “I’m so grateful for what you and your crew have done for us that I’m speechless”.

Jun nodded automatically and got closer to the ‘war instigator suspect’ with caution. 

“I believe you’re feeling much better now, doctor?” Jun said in a prudent voice. 

“Yes, thanks to your pilot for what I’ve heard?” doctor Ohno’s smile was innocent and quite dazzling as seen in a short distance. “Well, actually I reckon I shall thank a lot of people here as it seems” he added, tenderly squeezing Sho’s hand with his. 

“It was thanks to pure luck that my pilot had seen those symptoms before and knew you weren’t dead” Jun answered still a little dry.

Sho and doctor Ohno nodded as if they were living in a parallel universe where nothing could ever go wrong. 

“Anyway. I’ve come to inform you of the decision of the crew concerning you three”.

Suddenly, the two men got all upright. 

“We’ve decided that for the time being you’re welcome to the Arashi, my ship. But, as you must understand that, having crashed into my ship and all that, you’re expected to work with the crew in order to make the ship’s members coexistence as peaceful as posible” Jun made a pause. Sho and Ohno nodded quickly to show him they agreed. Jun nodded back and continued. “Kazuna will be working mainly with the engines, as it seems to be his field of expertise. As for you two, I’ve been told you’re a doctor, is that right?”

“I’m a scientific investigator, but I have a vast knowledge in the field of medicine as well”.

Jun rose his eyebrows.

“I see… So, am I right if I’m supposing that I can count on you to be our doctor while you’re with us?”

“Oh! Sure!” Ohno smiled again. 

“That will do”. Jun wasn’t sure if he was an efficient cold scientific, or the warmest of them all. “Err, and you, Sho, you said that you’re good with foreign languages?”

“Yes, captain. I can speak most of the languages spoken in and out of the Federation. And I’m strong too” Sho looked so ready to cooperate that he almost made Jun burst into laughter. 

“Good. Do you happen to speak H’lhun?”

“ _Juh’bn fhir ho’dn_!” Sho exclaimed smiling widely as his sole answer.

“Say what?”

“‘I speak the two dialects’. That’s what I said, captain” Sho proudly smiled at him again.

“Ooookay. Well, I speak none, so you’re coming with me on our next destination”.

“Are we going to K’len?”

“Not exactly, but we’re going to see a certain h’lhunma, a particularly cunning one if you ask me, so your ability to speak his tongue will come very in handy to know what he actually says. I’ve never trusted him or his interpreter”. 

“Is it going to be dangerous?” Ohno almost stood up with eyes filled with worry, looking alternatively at Jun and Sho.

“It’s perfectly safe for us. Not so much for our pockets, though” Jun laughed. “Okay, done then. Sho, I want you on the bridge with Masa now. Doctor, please come to talk to me when you feel recovered. Until then, take a rest”.

Jun saw helpless how Sho and Ohno looked at each other with sad eyes for having to split up. He cleared his throat again.

“Come on, Sho, I’ll show you the way. You can come back later after we’re back from our meeting with the sly h’lhunma”.

The doctor nodded at Sho with tender eyes and Sho hold his hand just one more second before standing up to follow the captain to the cockpit.

“Later” he whispered with a tender smile. “Have a good rest”. 

“Later” answered the doctor with dreamy eyes. “Have a good adventure”. 

When Jun left the infirmary followed by the clone Sho, he found himself unawarely smiling and thinking of Masa. As soon as he noticed, he made the smile disappear.

 


	15. Chapter 15

15

 

“I’m going to grab something to drink. Want anything?” said Nino, quite bored. In an attempt to try to cheer Kazuna up about the whole destroyed-Earth tragedy thing, he had shown him the core of the ship’s engine. And how that had hit the spot! Kazuna had gotten so into it that since then he hadn’t stuck his head out of the main panel. He was so fascinated by it that he kept talking and talking without really paying attention to Nino, who soon enough had found himself quite useless there.Kazuna was doing all the work needed to be done, and besides, Nino had no interest in talking about ship’s engine models all day long. So he decided to take a break. Preferably a long one.

“No, I’m fine. Thank you very much for asking” said Kazuna, still too concentrated on the engine panel to even bother to look at Nino.

“Okay, so… I’ll be back soon”.

“Aha”.

Nino put a foot out of the engine room and as soon as the other one followed he disappeared into the corridor feeling like a prisoner that had just escaped from jail. 

Truth was that he wasn’t thirsty, so he just wandered around the ship aimlessly. Before he could even realize it his feet took him to the infirmary, where a fully woken up doctor gazed around him with sad eyes. Nino was curious about the doctor, his relationship with the clone, and all the “war instigator” thing, so he thought he might as well have a chat with the doc, taking advantage of him being alone. Nino knocked gently at the doorframe. 

“Hi doc, how’re you feeling?”

“Oh, hi Nino?” The doctor smiled friendly, even if his eyes were still filled with sadness.

Nino stoped in the middle of a step, confused. 

“How do you know my name?”

The doctor slightly laughed.

“I’ve known you for quite a lot of time. It’d be unforgivable of me to not remember your name”, he said in a humorous tone.

Then Nino understood all of a sudden. The doctor thought he was his clone.

“Oh! I see! No, listen, sir, you’re mistaking me for my clone”. Nino nodded as Ohno frowned. “I’m Nino, the original, as you may say. I donated my genes some years ago and, well, now there’s another me” Nino laughed nervously, there was no adequate way to say those things.

“You’re not the Nino I know” Ohno said. Nino nodded. “Then, who are you?”

“I’m a member of the crew. You might have not seen me before as you were dead and all that when your clone brought you on board”. 

“He’s not my clone. He’s no-one’s anything” he answered sharply. 

“Sorry about that” said Nino not feeling sorry at all.

“I’ve meet the captain and the crew member that saved me, Masa. How many members has this ship’s crew?”

“It’s just the three of us” Nino wasn’t sure if he should be giving such information to a war instigator suspect. 

“Then, who is that Kazuna the captain mentioned before?” 

“Oh! That’d be your Nino, actually. We didn’t need two Ninos so I gave him a new name”. Nino smiled, as he was quite proud for his recent kindness. 

But instead of gratitude, Nino saw sadness and disappointment in the doctor’s face. 

“So you named him like if he was your new pet” he whispered.

“I… I didn’t name him. He liked it, you know? He was actually happy about it” Nino defended himself, feeling an irritating tickling as if he had done something bad. 

“You changed his name just because it would be easier for you, for all of you. You thought that it was the logic thing to do: let the clone change its name, as an emotionless thing”. The doctor sounded bitter. Tired.

“I didn’t think of that. I just thought it would be better if he had his own name, that’s all. Don’t take it out on me!” Nino frowned.

Ohno stared at him with hard eyes, as if he was judging Nino until he suddenly softened his expression and sighed longly. 

“I’m sorry, it’s just that after all that has happened… It’s just too sad. All those people dead. A whole solar system destroyed! It’s just too cruel…”

Nino got closer to Ohno but stoped midway. 

“It was a tragedy” Nino said.

“You have no idea… All those newborns…”

“You’re talking about the clones!” Nino exclaimed, and when he realized his own surprise, it made him feel like a horrible person. He felt bad for all the people that had died on the invasion. But only the biologic humans. He felt like shit.

“I’m talking about everyone. About every living organism”.

“I’m sorry” Nino muttered. 

Then Ohno smiled, out of the blue. 

“I would say you know very little about what was going on on that planet, and even less about clones. Am I right?”

The question took Nino by surprise. He opened his mouth and, for a few seconds, he didn’t know what to say to that. He finally nodded at the doctor. 

“Do you want to learn?” He asked him, a glimpse of hope in his eyes.

“I may not be a great pupil”.

“You don’t have to. You just need to open your mind a bit and listen. Then, you decide”. 

Nino leaned against the wall with arms crossed in a mischievous pose.

“As it seems I’ll be sharing the ship with two clones, it seems logical to learn something about them, so… I’m all ears”.

 


	16. Chapter 16

16

 

Meanwhile on the bridge, Masa and Sho seemed to be very busy talking about something.

“And how do you say ‘coconut’ in wertian?” Masa was spinning on his chair looking at Sho with bright eyes and smiling amused.

“ _Frentekilkandapaluh_ ” Sho answered in low spirit. As it seemed, Masa had been making him those kind of questions for more than an hour now.

“Oh! One more! How do you say ‘roger’ in chrinpi? I love those little fluffy aliens from the outer border of the Fereration”. 

Masa was so happy that Sho didn’t have the heart to deny him that little interrogation.

“Pír-paprí”.

“Wow! That sounds soooo cute! Pír-papriii. I think I’ll use that instead of boring ‘roger’ from now on” he made the chair to turn around completely, drawing a perfect circle with his feet.

“Do you think the captain will like it?” Sho asked in a voice that put to doubt that very fact.

“Of course he will! And if he doesn’t, well… “ Masa shrug his shoulders, “…he’ll have to give up, because I’m so saying pír-paprí!” He almost burst into laughter.

“By the way, where’s the captain?” Sho asked taking a look around. After the captain had led him to the bridge he had gone somewhere else and hadn’t come back yet.

“He’s at his private compartment having a videochat with the Security Forces of the moon we’re planning on landing”.

“Do we need a special permit?”

“Kind of. They’re a very protocol-loving kind of aliens, you know”.

Sho suddenly felt nervous.

“Oh… Is that so? Is there anything I should now before landing?”

“Hmmm, not much, really. Just do exactly as the captain does, try to look tough and dangerous, and don’t open your mouth”.

“But I’m going down there as an interpreter. I’ll have to speak at some point”.

“Oh! Right! Then forget about the last part and replace it with: omit all the swearwords, curses, death threats and the like, and it will be okay”.

Sho stared at Masa, even more worried than before. 

Just in that precise moment the captain entered the bridge. 

“Fucking exhausting protocol done. We’re landing in ten, Masa”. 

“Do I need to bring something with me?” Sho turned to Jun, his face all twisted in anxiety. 

Jun took a look at him from head to toe and then smiled.

“I would say you’re already taking too much. Take the jacket off and show your muscles, will you? We need them to think you’re a dangerous bastard, so try to look like one”. Jun turned to Masa. “Be ready for the permission codes and, as soon as you have them, put us on that stinky moon”.

“Pír-paprí captain” exclaimed Masa with a naughty look in his eyes and a wide smile. 

Jun raised his eyebrows in amusement. 

“Chrinpi, isn’t it?” He smiled as Masa opened his eyes widely, completely taken by surprise. “Cute” added the captain winking at Masa before leaving the bridge. “Sho, follow me”.

And as the clone followed the captain, he heard Masa singing “I told you he’d like it” softly while smiling happily.

 


	17. Chapter 17

17

 

Nino and doctor Ohno had been talking about clones for a while now. Ohno was so passionate about everything concerning them, that Nino found listening to him quite fascinating, in fact. Although his old beliefs about clones sometimes got in the way, making the doctor have to explain himself very patiently and usually twice. 

“Let me explain it to you. Clones are genetically prepared to undergo an abnormally fast growth procedure so they can get to adulthood in just a few years. Once they become the equivalent of an adult human being, they withstand two more years of advanced learning. As their genes are scientifically modified, they have the ability to retain more info than us, faster and steadier than us. So when they finish their “growth” they become perfect adults. But, on the downside, in some kind of way they’re also still children”.

“Because they’re not really 25, or 30 or ‘how many’ years old?”

“No, let me explain. Physically and mentally they are, but not emotionally. You see, their growth has been so controlled from the start, that they rarely have the opportunity to interact with each other, and when they do, they are not given enough time to mature what they feel”.

“Are you telling me you’re in love with an adult-shaped five years old?” Nino asked with a disgusted look in his eyes.

“Of course not! Sho is an adult, in any possible way and in all its full meaning. But his emotions, or the way he shows and receive emotions are, in some way of speaking, underdeveloped”.

“Meaning that he could go crazy and burn us all if he didn’t get dessert after dinner?”

“No!! Meaning that Kazuna and Sho may not be able to control their feelings the same way we do, resulting in longer bad moods, exulting happiness or deep sorrow for things that we, sometimes, may consider superfluous”

Nino looked confused at Ohno.

“But they can't control their feelings”. Nino said rising his left eyebrow.

“Of course they can, just in the same way as us. But it's harder for them to handle strong emotions. It's like the first time you fall in love. What you suddenly feel is so overwhelming that you don’t even know what to do with yourself. Then, that love weakens or ends, and you go on to the next one. The following time you fall in love, be it great and palpitating, amazing or calm, either way you know what you're getting into, so it’s, in a way, easier to undergo and usually less tempestuous. And even though, no matter how many times you fall in love, you’ll never forget your first love. Hmm. I hope I’m explaining myself”.

Ohno looked at Nino with a shy look in his clear eyes.

“Yeah, I think I'm beginning to understand what you mean. Everything is almost new to them so they need more time to process what they feel than us”. 

Ohno smiled. 

“Exactly. They may look childish sometimes but they’re not children. They are stronger, faster, cleverer… and pure at heart. What I’m trying to say is that they’re, without a shadow of doubt, true humans, in the best way of speaking”. 

Nino sat on a chair sitting in the corner of the infirmary.

“You know what, doctor? I’ve been always told that clones weren’t like us, that they didn’t feel like us, grieve like us, see life as we do. And for the first time ever, I think they might as well have been right about it”.

The doctor looked back at Nino with sad eyes, thinking that making humankind see clones as they really were, beautiful human beings, was, as expected, a lost cause. 

“Is that so?” Muttered Ohno, feeling defeated.

“Yeah. They’re not like us. I would say that they don’t feel like us, they feel deeper. They don’t get sad like us, they actually grieve. They don’t see life as we do, as a mere something we all have got to go through; they actually want to live” Nino lifted his eyes and stared right into Ohno’s. “If what you've said is right, then they're not like us. They're better than us”.

Ohno opened his eyes wide open filled with hope, and looked intensely at Nino.

“Not quite. What I mean is that they have their strengths, but also their weakness. Like any other human in the entire Universe. They are as human as anybody else. Besides, they don't want to be better than us. They just want to be consider as what they are: humans”. 

“You know what, doctor? I like that”. Nino smirked warmly. 

“Me too”. Ohno smiled so radiantly it made Nino look away. 

“I’m not saying I’m swallowing all your theories and stories without seeing them with my own eyes for a longer period of time, but what’s true is true: Clones are not dispensable and customizable human-like things. I don’t care what anyone else says out there. They look human to me”. 

Ohno was so glad to hear Nino say those words that he almost jumped out of the stretcher. Nino stood up and rushed to catch him before he could fall off the stretcher and held him between his arms right in time. 

“Careful!!” Nino shouted.

“Thank you”, Ohno’s eyes were watery. “Thank you for trying to understand”. 

Nino became speechless in such a short distance to the captivating doctor’s face. How could anyone be so talented in a field as cold as science, but at the same time be so emotional, so passionate about other people’s feelings? Before he could realize it himself, Nino was smiling warmly and helping the doctor lay back on the stretcher again. 

“What are you thanking me for?” Nino laughed. “I did nothing”.

“You listened” the doctor smiled back at Nino, his eyes filled with hope and his face radiant and fresh. 

Nino swallowed and let go of the doctor as if his skin was burning him. As it happens, the doctor was quite dazzling.

“I think you should take more rest” Nino said gabbling. “I’ll go check on Kazuna”. 

“See you later?” Asked the doctor, not so keen to be left alone again.

“Yeah, sure. Okay, then. Bye”. And without waiting for Ohno’s answer, Nino rushed out of the infirmary just to lay against the corridor’s wall as soon as he’d gotten out of Ohno’s sight. He rose his hand to his lips and pressed it against them. That had been too close, he thought. He pictured Ohno’s body between his arms, and his smiling face just a few centimeters away from his. 

“Shit! I fucking almost kiss him” he whispered to the empty corridor. 

 


	18. Chapter 18

18

 

“Announcement to the crew. We’re landing on B’nur, our slippery and well informed friend B’ugsnak’s moon, in less than three minutes as counting from now. Sho and I will go down there alone. Don’t do anything silly while I’m away. End of transmission”. Jun pressed the switch of the communication panel and turned to Masa. “Are we ready for a speed up runaway in case things get messed up?”

“We always are” Masa smiled. “But I know we won’t need to do so. It’s going to be all right, you’ll see”. 

Jun smiled at Masa. No matter how wrong things were, he always managed to put a smile on his face. 

“Listen, Masa… When we sort out all this mess and regain a bit of free time, do you think that you and I…?” Jun hesitated. 

“Jun” Masa made the most of that few minutes in which he was alone with the captain. Sho had momentarily left the cockpit to get ready for the landing. “Can I come to your compartment later?”

Jun suddenly turned all bright red and swallowed noisily. 

“I’ll get that as a yes” Masa singed while smiling happy as ever. 

“You—“

“I’m ready~” Sho entered the bridge just in time to break the mood, only wearing a tank-top and comando trousers. “Do I look dangerous enough?”

Masa turned his head away to not burst into laughter in his face.

“Yeah. Just, don’t smile like that” Jun said holding a laugh as well. Sho seemed so nervous that Jun thought he was kind of cute. For a big muscle dangerous bastard, as it was.

“Roger” Sho answered.

“Pír-paprí” Masa corrected him.

“I’m not saying that if I’m pretending to look dangerous!” Sho complained.

“Okay, enough chat. Sho, let’s go. We’re being connected to the harbor”.

Jun and Sho left the bridge and went straight to the main hatch. 

“Do as I do, take everything they give you, and let me do the talking” Jun gave Sho basic instructions. 

Sho nodded and the hatch opened. On the other side of it, two huge guards in armors were waiting for them. Jun greeted them nonchalantly with his left hand and urged Sho to follow him. They were covering a long corridor that didn’t seem to end anytime soon when, suddenly, they entered a suffocating room, filled with at least ten different types of smells at once, colored smoke pouring out of an unknown kind of machine, and a big, disgusting and juicy snake-like organism occupying the center of what seemed to be a long ago rotten pond. It was B’ugsnak himself. 

As soon as Sho saw the alien named B’ugsnak, he knew he was definitely afraid of snakes. They hadn’t had them on A-3X-4 so he hadn’t seen anything snakey looking before, but now that he had, he felt cold sweat running down his spine and the urge to start screaming and running all over the place. 

“What’s with the face? Act tough, for fuck’s sake!” Jun whispered on his ear. 

They reached the central rotten pond, and as soon as they did, Jun smiled widely and as fake as it gets. 

“B’ugsnak-Arsley, old friend!!” He exclaimed in a far too cheerful voice. 

“K’ptan Jun” answered the fat snake gurgling. 

After quite a lot of polite set expressions, all of them superfluous and almost completely meaningless, Jun gave an elbow to Sho to translate and start talking about what they’d gone there to. As translated, the conversation with B’ugsnak-Arsley went like it follows:

“So you *** came looking for information. I have what you’re looking for, may it be for *** or *** or ***. How many questions?” The snake laughed disgustingly as Sho omitted all the barbaric uses that B’ugsnak had suggested to do if they got hold on said information.

Jun thought to himself before asking: Who attacked A-3X-4? Why Ohno is sorted as a war instigator? Why destroy the whole solar system of Jenova? And why the hell were they all sorted as deceased to the database? Four questions. That was going to cost him well.

“Four”.

B’ugsnak laughed as if he was melting in a noisy way. 

“Those are a lot of questions. Five per each”.

“What?!! You greedy bastard! That’s a rip-off you fucking bulbous snake”. Sho made sure that none of said swearwords reached B’ugsnak’s ears. 

That way, they kept negotiating for a long time until they seemed to have reached an agreement. Sho sighed to himself. He just wanted that negotiation to end and be able to put the biggest distance he could between him and that disgusting snake.

But things weren’t going to be that simple, he soon found out.

As the agreement was set, the slaves (Sho had no doubt about what those servants actually were) brought two big golden trays and lain them just in front of Jun and himself. On them there was an abundant pile of some green leaves. Sho looked at Jun sideways just to find him trying hard to choke back the nausea that was rising at his throat to the very sight of it. 

“Feast and enjoy the best parsley you’ll find in the whole Universe!” B’ugsnak said proudly to Sho’s fear. Of all the edible plants he knew, parsley was the one which Sho hated the most. There was no way he was going to be able to eat all that without letting his disgust show to his face. Or even worse. ‘This bulbous thing must be kidding!’ Sho screamed inside his head.

But it wasn’t.

Sho saw in horror how Jun forced a smile while taking a bunch of his most hated green veggie and put it in his mouth. Then looked at Sho while frowning, urging him to do the same.

Sho closed his eyes and tried hard to concentrate in not throwing up. 

Everything was going smooth. B’ugsnak was smiling (or so they hoped), and the information they were craving for was just on the tip of their fingers. They were going to finally know why they were dead to the Universe. They were going to know why—

Then Sho threw up. 

The whole thing.

On B’ugsnak’s tail’s end. 

Silence fell. 

Jun almost choked, his body suddenly on the alert. His right hand next to his hip, where he had hidden his paralyzer. 

Then the chaos began. 

Sho thought it lucky that Jun didn’t understand what those aliens were saying they wanted to do with the two of them. Or the parts of the two of them they wanted to chop off, in particular.

Jun took his wrist to his mouth. 

“Plan B, Masa. We’re getting the hell out of here!”

“Pír-paprí!!!” Sho heard the pilot’s voice under the transmisor’s static noise. 

“What’s going on?!” Sho managed to ask Jun.

“You just screwed it all up in the worst possible way!! That disgusting parsley is like divine food for them. We’ve just made the worst offense ever! Punishable with death, you asshole!” Jun sounded very angry. 

“Ups!”

“Don’t you dare ‘ups’ me! Use your muscles and concentrate on taking us out of here alive. I’ll kill you later” he snorted at Sho.

For what Sho was hearing, the whole reign of B’ugsnak-Arsley, meaning the whole moon of B´nur, had put a price on their heads. Literally speaking. And, as he kept listening, on their lungs as well. 

Sho pushed some snakes-guards in armors and made way for Jun and himself to escape. The long corridor now seemed longer than ever. They dodged, paralyzed, hit and run desperately until they reached the Arashi’s hutch. 

“Now, Masa!!” Yelled the captain, and as he did, the hutch began to close up. 

Jun and Sho sprinted towards the door and slipped away below it just in time before it got sealed. They rolled on the floor once inside the ship.

On the other side of the hutch, having managed to get themselves to safety, Jun punched Sho in the face with all his remaining strength. 

“We almost get killed!” Jun bursted. 

“Yeah” replied Sho breathing heavily. “But the parsley was good” he joked, leaving the adrenaline take control of his words.

Jun chuckled and punched him softly on the elbow. And even if it was probably the worst place and time to do so, they bursted into laughter. 

 


	19. Chapter 19

19

 

They were still laughing covered in a sticky and viscous green slime when suddenly something hit the ship hard. Jun stoped laughing and turned to Sho, astonished. 

“Are they fucking shooting us?!!” Jun put a feet firmly on the floor and tried to stand up, but a second hit, added to the squishy thing under his feet, made him slip and fell over again. He cursed in at least five languages and took his wrist band to his mouth.

“Masa, they’re fuc—“

“I know! I’m trying to warp in their face but they’re immobilizing the ship somehow…”

“Shit! Hold on!” Jun pressed another code on his wrist band. “Kazuna? Tell me you’re in the engine room” Jun begged trying to stand up again.

Sho was now leaning on the wall and offered the captain a hand. He took it at the same time that Kazuna’s voice came off the transmitter.

“Oh, so you have to press this thing to be heard! This is so last century’s!”

“Shut up and answer the fucking question, this is an emergency!” The captain seethed. 

“Yes, I’m here”.

“It seems they’re immobilizing the ship somehow. Fix it!”

“Do I have carte blanche?”

Jun looked at Sho with an exasperated expression on his face.

“He means if he can do whatever it takes to fix it”. Sho clarified.

“Goddamned yes!” Jun yelled at the transmitter before turning it off.

Now that they were both on their feet, they leaned on each other, walking slowly towards the bridge. A whirring noise, then a new shot threw them on the floor again. 

“When I get to stand on my feet again I’m so gonna kill you, Sho”.

Jun was so angry he had turned slightly reddish. Sho swallowed and tried to stand up again when all of a sudden the trembling stoped and the ship went silent. Jun and Sho looked at each other, preparing themselves for a big shot this time, but instead of that, Masa’s voice reached them from the speaker on the ceiling.

“We’re good, captain. Kazuna made it!”

Sho and Jun sighed at once, then laid arms on each other’s shoulders out of relief.

“To the cockpit, now” muttered Jun. 

The two men got to the bridge slipping and cursing, and stinking of ten different smells at once. Once they got there, Jun reunited the rest of the crew.

“Plan went wrong. We have no information, and we’ve also lost our best informer” Jun said glaring at Sho.

“That was your best—?”

“Shut up or I’ll be the one chopping your head off”. Said the captain pointing a finger at Sho, who immediately hid his lips showing he wasn’t going to add a word for the time being.

“We’ll have to change to plan B” Jun sighed.

“I thought that running away was Plan B” Masa pointed out.

“Then Plan C. How we call it doesn’t matter. We have to talk about what to do now”.

“Can you please have a shower first?” Nino took part wrinkling his nose. “You two stink like rotten hell”.

The whole crew, only missing doctor Ohno, nodded agreeing with Nino’s words. Truth was, Jun was beginning to feel sick too.

“Okay. We’ll meet at the kitchen in one hour”. Jun said trying to contain himself to not strangle Sho right there. “And Kazuna… Good job”. 

Kazuna smiled so widely and proud that it almost served to calm down Jun’s mood a little. After that, all the crew members left the bridge while Jun waited until only Masa was left.

“We screwed up” he muttered then, not looking so angry anymore.

“It’s okay. I won’t tell Sho you said ‘we’” he winked at him. “Come on, we’ll think of something else. We always find a way. But now, you should take a shower. For real”. 

Jun smiled and faked a move in which he tried to stain Masa. The pilot dodged his fingers but grabbed his wrist.

“What are you doing? You’re going to get this thing on you too!” Jun laughed in spite of his attempt to remain looking angry. 

“That’s exactly what I’m looking for” Masa smiled naughtily. “That way I’ll have to get that shower too”.

Jun laughed so hard that his laughter echoed the room.

“I’m afraid you just wasted a great jumper. Sho must be in the shower now, remember?”.

“I can wait five more minutes” Masa smiled.

Jun gazed at him, feeling how his terrible mood was now fading away.

“Yeah, but maybe I can’t” Jun got closer to Masa until he leaned his forehead against his. His lips just a few centimeters away from Masa’s. 

“Jun, you know that I love you” Masa looked straight at Jun’s eyes. “But you stink way too much right now…”

Jun laughed again, feeling the urge to hold Masa tight right there, in that very moment. He closed his eyes and stepped away from him.

“To the showers then”.

“Yes, please”. 

 


	20. Chapter 20

20

 

As Jun had predicted, Sho was in the shower room when he and Masa got there. Masa glanced furtively at Jun, he looked disappointed. 

“This is great!” Exclaimed Sho as soon as he saw them. “I’ve never had a hot shower before. It’s so pleasant and relaxing that you don’t want to ever get out of it, right?”.

“Yeah, well, but hot water isn’t everlasting, so keep it short or we’ll run out of it”. Jun replied.

“It can run out? But that’s awful!” Sho rushed to finish washing his body and turned the tap off straight away. 

By the time Jun began to have his shower, Sho was already zipping his trousers. Masa thought that he would finally get to have his alone time with the captain, when a greasy Kazuna entered the shower room. Masa sighed feeling defeated and had a quick shower, back to back to Jun. He looked at the captain out of the corner of his eye as he got out of the shower and got dressed. 

It had happened again. There was always something keeping them apart and busy. Be it emergencies, stowaways, aliens or green sticky slime. It didn’t matter. It didn’t change the fact that he didn’t remember the last time he’d been alone with Jun. 

Masa got dressed and left the shower room, heading back to the cockpit. He was thinking of Jun, and how he had made his heart beat fast when he had lain his forehead against his when alone on the bridge before. He missed so much holding him tight, feeling him close… He missed touching him, his skin, his lips; he missed all of him.

He had turned left on the next corridor, lost in his thoughts when, suddenly, a hand pulled him right into his own room and threw him on the bed. Then someone leaped up at him and knocked him to the bed while kissing his lips with urge. His room was pitch black, but Masa didn’t need the lights on to know who was kissing him in such a passionate way. He would have recognized Jun’s kisses even in the darkest place in the Universe. Masa smiled in Jun’s lips and rose his arms to surround his neck, taking him closer while lifting his hips. He wanted to feel him so bad that he almost forgot everything else. Jun was _here_ and _now_.

“Masaki…” Jun whispered on his ear as he softly bit it. It made him tremble.

Masa moaned, and held Jun’s upper body tight, and surrounded his hips with his legs, and kissed him for all those times that something had gotten in their way. 

Jun’s breathing got heavier and his desire began to overflow over Masa as he turned them upside down, being now the pilot who was leaping on the captain. Jun loved that kind of games, and he knew it. 

In the darkness of the room it was hard to know who had undressed who first. Not that they cared much about it. Jun just wanted to feel Masa’s skin rubbing his, and Masa just wanted to finally be with Jun again. For as long as they could. 

And for a moment, neither of them cared about clones, attacks, disgusting snake-aliens or silly databases. 

Masa run his lips over Jun’s neck, letting his breath make his hair stand on end. 

Jun caressed Masa’s abdomen, causing him to arch his back yearning for more. 

Masa grabbed Jun’s back and got him closer to him, naughtily moving his crotch towards his. 

“I’ve missed you” Masa breathed. 

Jun held Masa’s face between his hands so softly that he was barely touching him. As if he was just too precious.

“And I’ve missed you, my love”.

Eyes already used to the dark, Masa smiled and kissed one of Jun’s palms before capturing his face to kiss him slowly. Almost as if he was tasting his lips. 

“I love it when you say that” he whispered on his ear, touching it with his lips half opened. 

“I know” Jun whispered, already lost in the sensuality of Masa’s body language. 

The talk was over. 

They knew they hadn’t much time, and so they gave oneself over to each other for what it was left of it.


	21. Chapter 21

21

 

Masa was still lying naked on the bed when Jun finished putting on his clothes. 

“I’m heading to the kitchen” he sighed.

Masa stretched and rolled on the bed as all answer.

Jun headed to the room gate, but before he opened it, he turned around and walked back to the bed, stepped on it on his knees and leaned his body over Masa’s, kissing his lips tenderly just one more time. Masa smiled in his kiss. After which Jun rubbed his nose against his.

“The meeting at the kitchen will be in five. Don’t be too late, okay?” Jun said softly leaning his forehead against the pilot’s.

“I see, the captain is back” he reprimanded him just kidding.

Jun kissed his temple and got off the bed, heading to the gate and opening it this time. He sighed once he had crossed the threshold, taking a look back at Masa’s bare skin before closing the gate from outside. Jun leaned his head briefly against it and turned around to face the corridor. 

Even before he set a foot on the kitchen area, he could hear the sound of laughter. Someone seemed to be having fun, he thought. When he entered the room, he found Kazuna and Sho on the only sofa of the ship, with the doctor sitting between them, the three of them laughing out loud. On the other side of the room, Nino was resting his elbows on the kitchen’s counter, staring at the doctor while narrowing his eyes. Jun got close to him and imitated his posture by his side.

“So, what are we looking at?” Jun asked Nino. 

Nino jumped. He hadn’t noticed Jun coming in.

“Jeez, captain!! What are you? A cat or something?”

Jun laughed and gave him a nudge.

“I see the doctor has left the infirmary”.

“Yeah” Nino answered absent-minded, not taking his eyes away from Ohno. “Captain J, doesn’t he remind you of someone?” Nino pointed at Ohno with his chin.

“The doctor?” Now also Jun was staring at Ohno, narrowing his eyes while doing so.

“Try to imagine him his blondish and spiky hair, thick make-up including a beauty mark on his left cheek, and tacky gold clothes”.

Jun narrowed his eyes even more, then suddenly exclaimed.

“What the hell?! He’s exactly like—“

“Sami!” They said in unison. Then looked at each other in amazement.

“Do you think he may be…?”

“What?” Asked a voice from behind, startling them. It was Masa’s.

“Masa, look at Ohno veeeery attentively and tell us if he reminds you of anyone else in particular” Nino asked him.

“Imagine him with make up and dressed in gold” completed Jun.

Masa looked at the doctor but after a while he just shook his head. 

“Don’t you think he’s just like Sami?” Nino couldn’t take it anymore.

“Sami? You mean our previous informer? The one who handles almost every piece of information that can be found in this part of the Universe? The one you two did never bring me to, so I’ve never seen before? _That_ Sami?” Masa sounded resentful.

“Oh… Right. Sorry. You usually stay on the ship in case something goes wrong” laughed nervously Nino. Jun just looked ashamed.

“Yes, exactly. And if I remember correctly, that was exactly what happened the last time we went to see him. I remember being shot, prosecuted and banned from his asteroid as well”. 

Nino and Jun looked away from Masa’s eyes, in an attempt to avoid the matter.

“Do you think he lied to us? I mean, the doctor. What if he is a clone too? Sami’s clone” Jun said while frowning.

“I don’t think so. I’ve been talking to him, and he knows way too much about clones to be one of them” Nino assured. “It could be the other way around. Sami could be his clone” he suggested.

The three of them stared at the doctor for a while in complete silence until Nino came out with an idea.

“Hey, I was thinking… Why don’t we use him to get to Sami again?”

“That… could be actually a good idea, Nino! If we could be in good terms with Sami again, we could get all the information we need and fix this whole mess!” Masa exclaimed. 

“And how do you pretend to do that?”

“Well, we three are not allowed on Sami’s asteroid, but they are” Nino pointed at the clones. “Well, not Kazuna. He’s like me so he’d get shot as soon as he set foot on the harbor”.

Jun turned to Nino straight away.

“Are you suggesting to leave this new plan in the hands of Sho and the doctor? You must be kidding! Look at what Sho caused on B’nur! They want us dead there!” 

“They want us dead on Sami’s little reign too” pointed out Nino.

Jun pressed his lips.

“You’re right…” he had to admit.

“Sho has to go. We can’t make the doctor go by himself, and besides, I’m not sure if we can trust him good enough to believe he’ll ask Sami if he’s a war instigator on not. I think that, if he is, he would already know, and he would be hiding it, don’t you think?” Said Nino.

“But Sho is his lover, he could be harboring him. And what’s more, we don’t even know who of those two is the clone. The doctor or Sami” added Jun.

“We could ask him” suggested Masa.

“Ask the doctor?” Exclaimed Nino.

“Ask me what?” The three men turned around like the wind just to face Ohno looking at them from the other side of the kitchen’s counter. He was smiling and completely unaware of the conversation that the crew had been having about him.

“I see you’re out of the infirmary. Are you feeling better?” Jun reflexes worked at full speed.

“Yes, I’m feeling much better now, thank you”. 

“Good, good” Jun nodded tapping the bar with his fingers. He felt Nino nudging him from behind. “So… can I have a word with you, doctor?”

“Sure. In fact, I heard we’re having a meeting now, so I came as well”.

“Great… because we kind of have a lot of questions to ask you”.


	22. Chapter 22

22

 

“Well, doctor, tell us everything you know about what happened on A-3X-4, if you don’t mind”. Jun used a tone that made clear it wasn’t a request.

“Oh! It was an incredibly interesting investigation what was going on there! The well-known scientific Stormin, doctor in genetical development by the Higher University of the Federation, had this theory about improved terraformation systems and the need for an advanced molecular base development in…”

“Doctor, wait, wait! Wait! Shush!” 

Ohno blinked quickly several times and looked at the crew as if he had just noticed they were still there. It was Jun who had interrupted him, now leaning on the kitchen’s counter, arms crossed and frowning. 

“What are you talking about? Don’t tell us scientific tales or whatever the hell you were talking about. What we want to know is what happened on the day A-3X-4 got invaded, and what were you doing there before that”. 

The doctor frowned back as if he didn’t quite understand the meaning of that question.

“But… you were there too, weren’t you? You saw it all. Probably better than me, if you don’t mind me saying. I was dead”. 

Jun pressed his lips and stared at Ohno without saying a word. He still wasn’t sure about the doctor after reading the info on the data base entry that classified him as a war instigator suspect. The atmosphere of the room was so tense you could almost see it floating around.

“Okay… I’m not sure about what you really want to hear, but I’ll tell you all I know, even if I doubt it will help you in any way. You may want to take a sit, it’s going to be a long story, I’m afraid” Ohno sighed. “I was assigned to Lab Alfa a year and a half ago. At first I only saw the Inner Laboratory, where everything is made in front of all kinds of computer screens or under very advanced microscopes. In short, for more than a month I didn’t even see a clone with my own eyes. I believed everything they had taught me about them… until I had to go out to the Outer Laboratory to pick up some samples. Then I saw them, the clones”, Ohno had a quick glance at Sho and Kazuna. “And they were laughing, or bored of work, or had dreamy eyes fixed on the sky… and I saw that they were just like us. So human. At that moment I didn’t understand what I had just seen. I didn’t want to believe that all I had always known about them was a lie. So I tried to go on with my job, but in the end I just… couldn’t. I needed to know more. From that day on I began to frequent the Outer Laboratory and beyond, I began to talk with the clones in the common areas, and I devoted myself to learn as much as I could about what was truly happening on that planet. I learned about the terraformation fails, about the mass clone deaths, and about how it didn’t seem to matter to anyone in the whole Federation. So I went deeper and deeper. I investigated all I could about what was hidden under the mask of the so-called ‘danger-free terraformation’”. Ohno shook his head with sad eyes. “I discovered things so horrible I can’t even put them into words here. Things that Sho and Kazuna don’t know about, for which I’m truly thankful. And I’m not going to be the one telling them. Anyway… It’s not like it matters anymore, now that the planet is destroyed”. 

Jun was on the alert after listening to Ohno. He wasn’t sure before, but now… didn’t Ohno just sounded like the perfect war instigator willing to put an end to the cruel experiments going on on that planet?

“What do you mean?” He asked cautiously. 

“That now… everything is gone. All those innocent lives are gone. After being grown like dispensable things… they never got to know that freedom even existed!” Ohno was getting quite emotional thinking of the tragedy and all the humans and clones dead by it. 

Jun twisted his lips, annoyed. Now, that wasn’t the behavior of someone who had planned those very deaths he was grieving for. 

“Okay, I get it. Get to the point, please”, Jun urged him.

“Yes, right. I’m sorry. I was trying to gather as much information as I could to bring to the Federation, when the attack suddenly occurred. Truth is I hardly noticed it. I was out in the open, looking for Sho, when everything went blurry, and then dark. The next thing I remember is waking up at the ship’s infirmary”.

Ohno became silent and looked at Jun in the eye. 

“Did I answered to your question, captain?”

Jun sighed and stood up, walking around the room with a hand under his chin, lost in his thoughts. 

“So, there was something fishy going on on that nightmare lab planet, right? Did anyone else know?” Jun narrowed his eyes.

“I suppose that everyone working on the Restricted Laboratory knew about it. But I was never allowed inside so I couldn’t say”. 

“After what you saw they were doing on that planet you’d be wanting all those experiments to end, and, let’s say, close the lab for good?” Jun asked in an attempt to unravel the words behind the doctor’s speech.

“I just wanted the Federation to know what was going on there. It’s true that by doing so I was slightly hoping they’d eventually close Lab Alfa down and freed the clones… But, well, I ‘ve never had much faith in them understanding that clones’ lives are as precious as humans’”. 

“And you made an enemy by doing so. I see”. 

“What? An enemy? Me? No, no, no” Ohno smiled tossing that crazy idea away.

“You didn’t tell him, right?” Masa asked the captain.

“Not yet”.

“Tell me? Tell me what?” The doctor looked confused. 

“Can I tell him?” Nino asked suddenly jumping off his seat. He knew too well the captain could be too harsh when giving bad news.

Jun nodded while sighing. 

“Well, doctor. In fact, it seems that you’ve made yourself a powerful enemy out there, maybe because of your investigations on Lab Alfa. And we’re telling you this because in the intergalactic database, not only are you sorted as deceased, but also as a war instigator”.

Ohno opened his mouth as wide as it was physically possible. 

“War insti… Wait, what?!” 

 


	23. Chapter 23

23

 

“Did you really believe that? It has to be some kind of joke, for sure” Sho laughed insecurely, not believing the accusation at all this time as he didn’t believe it the first time he’d heard of it. 

“This doctor? You mean _this_ doctor here? Does he look like a war instigator? Are you fucking kidding us?” Kazuna happened to be more in the mood for using swearwords. 

Meanwhile, Ohno glided forward on his seat at the sofa until he was barely sitting on its edge, looking intensely at Nino’s eyes, in search for the slightest glimpse for that words being a joke. Not that it hadn’t crossed his mind while he was on Lab Alfa that he was doing something dangerous by looking up classified information on the experiments, but he didn’t expect to be blamed for being the one who had lead to kill them all. 

“A war instigator? But… I… I don’t even know who invaded the planet! If I had known the attack was going to happen I would had fled before it took place, don’t you think? And besides, I would never put in danger the very people I was trying to protect and willing to fight for their freedom. It’s nonsense!”. 

Masa put a hand over Jun’s shoulder. It was clear as water that the doctor wasn’t that kind of person. The entry about the doctor was a lie. In the same way that all the other entries that classified them as being deceased were. Somewhere deep inside, Jun had known all the time that the doctor was innocent, but he was the captain, he had to be certain. He had to ask.

“Someone has put a lot of work trying to erase everyone that was on Jenova System on that day, as well as putting the blame on someone else. I don’t like this. We need to get information. Solid and reliable” Jun sat on the low table welded to the floor in front of Ohno.

“One more question, doctor” Jun fixed his eyes on Ohno’s. “Do you happen to know a man that goes by the name of Sami, who lives on an asteroid called Yatai, and is exactly like you?”

Ohno’s eyes opened widely.

“How do you know that?! Was it on the database as well?” Ohno seemed upset.

“You know him?!” Bursted Masa and Nino in unison, surprised that he actually did know Sami.

“Yes, of course I know him, he’s my brother”. The doctor almost spat the last word.

“Your brother?! Not a clone?” Once again, Masa and Nino seemed to have only one voice. 

“Another one like him?? Oh, God, no, thank you. One is more than enough”. The doctor dragged himself back on the sofa and crossed his arms over his chest, suddenly in a bad mood. 

“Are you telling me you’re Sami’s brother?”

“I believe that was exactly what I’ve just said. Twins, in fact. We had never gotten along very well, so I haven’t seen him for more than ten years now. You see, we didn’t exactly chose the same path in life”. 

“We know” Masa said bluntly. “But let me tell you something that may as well surprise you. As a matter of fact, you two didn’t chose so distant paths as you may imagine. Sami is very well known in the whole intergalactic black market. As it happens, he’s one of the best, if not the best, in keeping abreast of all the information you can wish for. There’s almost nothing he doesn’t know. So, as you see, both of you seem to have a weakness for knowledge, and a lot of curiosity going on your heads”. 

“Not of the same type, nor aiming for the same objectives”. Ohno replied acidly.

“He mainly wants money. Or favors. Or both, depends on his mood”. Muttered Nino. 

“Then, if he’s the best, why did we have to go see the snake-parsley alien who now wants our heads chopped off?” Sho yelled indignantly. 

Jun cleaned his throat before answering. 

“It’s a delicate matter. You see, we had a disagreement with him, and now he doesn’t want to do business with us”. The captain tried to put it soft. 

“We’re banned for life from his asteroid. If we set foot on it, we’re dead” Nino clarified, immediately confronted to Jun’s fearsome glare. 

Ohno stared at Jun, letting him know he wasn’t going to give way so easily.

“Okay, we screwed up with him and now we can’t turn to him for information when we most need it”. 

“But we can” Ohno said looking sideways at Sho. “Is that what you’re trying to say, captain?”

Jun, Masa and Nino nodded at the same time. 

“May he be the best or not, he’s all we’ve got now. He doesn’t know Sho, so he surely doesn’t want to kill him. And you…”

“I’m his brother” Ohno answered in a tiresome tone. “And what makes you think he doesn’t want to kill me too?”

“You’re his brother” Masa said, quite confused.

“That only puts me first on the list”. Ohno sighed and stood up from the sofa. “Do I understand this is our only plan to know the truth as for now?”

Once again, Jun, Masa and Nino nodded.

“Then, it can’t be helped. I don’t know if my brother will be willing to see me, or will rather prefer to kill me or just mock me, but if that gets us the information we need, so be it. Well, then, what’s the plan, captain?” Ohno asked shrugging his shoulders while facing Jun, as Nino and Masa jumped cheering behind the kitchen’s counter hardly believing their luck.

 


	24. Chapter 24

24

 

After a bit of cheering, shouts and regained hope, Jun rose his voice and made his hands clap twice to make everyone pay attention to him. 

“Okay, so we have a new plan. Sami’s asteroid is not far from here so, to your places, everyone! Let’s get this thing moving. Sho, doctor, with me”. Jun looked in good spirits. 

“Captain” Ohno crossed Jun’s path before he left for the bridge. “Could I pass by the infirmary before? I know my brother just too much, better to be prepared”. 

“Oh, sure. Good idea. Come to the bridge as soon as you’re finished. We’ve got a know-it-all asshole to call”. In spite of himself, Jun laughed satisfied with how their luck had improved in the last minutes thanks to the doctor. 

Ohno nodded and turned his back on him, heading to the infirmary. He felt insecure about all that contact-Sami thing. He took a deep breath and left the kitchen slowly. Sho was talking to Masa, Jun was already gone, and Kazuna and Nino were nowhere to be seen. Ohno got into the corridor that leaded to the infirmary, lost in his memories of the past. His childhood. His adolescence in that far away house on a distant planet. He was trying to remember when was the last time he had seen his twin brother when suddenly someone softly grabbed him by the wrist. Ohno turned around to face whoever was doing it. It was Nino, dragging him to a smaller corridor to his right. 

Once they entered said corridor, Nino released Ohno’s wrist as softly as he had grabbed it before, but didn’t pull away from him. Ohno looked at him in confusion.

“Hey” Nino almost whispered. He looked insecure and, as it seemed, he didn’t know what to do with his hands either.

“It’s everything okay?” Ohno asked him.

Nino smiled warmly for a second, then looked at Ohno with a worried expression on his face.

“I was just wondering… Are you really okay with all this?”

“Eh? Well, I don’t really have a choice, do I? If my brother is the only way to solve this mess…”

“It’s not the only way. You don’t have to put yourself in danger”. Unconsciously Nino placed a hand on Ohno’s elbow. 

“Weren’t you celebrating precisely this new plan just a moment ago?” Ohno asked him bitterly, yet still confused, very aware of Nino’s hand. He was barely touching him, his hand was just standing there, in the air, as if he was in someway scared of touching him. 

“But” Nino said rising his eyes to Ohno’s. “I’m worr-“

“Here you are!” A voice came from behind them, startling Nino to the point that it made him jump on his feet. His hand now far away from Ohno’s elbow. The voice was Sho’s. 

“Yeah, yes. Everything is fine. Okay, then. I must go to the engine’s… See you later. Good luck with Sami and” he looked briefly at Ohno’s eyes, “please, take care”. 

“Thank you, we will” Ohno replied almost automatically while Nino left the corridor. ‘What had been all that about?’, he asked himself.

The doctor went back to reality to the touch of Sho’s hands on his. 

His hands were always warm. Comforting, caring, loving. 

Ohno smiled at him. Sho put himself in front of him, making Ohno lean against the corridor’s wall, trapped between it and Sho. Sho let go of one of his hands to take it to Ohno’s nape and surround it with great care. Ohno closed his eyes and rested his cheek on Sho’s forearm. 

“Hey” Sho breathed while tenderly kissing Ohno’s forehead. “Are you okay?”

Ohno let go of Sho’s hand and surrounded his waist with both arms, getting his body closer to his while sinking his face in Sho’s neck. 

Sho hugged him back, caressing his hair and the nape of his neck.

“What’s wrong, Satoshi?” He asked him in a low voice. Sho only called him by his first name when they were alone, just the two of them.

Ohno pressed his lips on Sho’s neck’s skin, feeling relieved at the very touch of it. He stayed like that for just a minute, then rose his eyes to him. Sho was gazing at him with such tender eyes that Ohno relaxed completely in his arms. Nothing could go wrong if Sho was there by his side.

“Sho, everything but you is wrong. Haven’t you noticed?” Ohno said trying to play the matter down.

“I’m serious, Satoshi. What’s wrong?” Sho replied, taking Ohno’s face in his hands while making a worried face.

Ohno sighed and nodded feeling Sho’s warmth giving him strengths. 

“It’s just that… it’s too much. The whole Jenova System destroyed, all those lives lost, then that thing about all of us being sorted as deceased, and set aside that entry about me saying I’m a war instigator no less! But, to tell you the truth, Sho, what worries me the most at this exact moment is my…” Ohno looked away.

“Your brother, right?” Sho completed. “You’ve never told me about him”.

“There isn’t much to tell. He left home when I was still a student at my home planet’s Federal Institute of Science. He was always causing trouble, and then one day he just… left”.

“Did it make you suffer?”

Ohno looked at Sho with eyes filled with remorse and secrets. He was shaking his head in Sho’s hands.

“No. I felt relief”. 

Sho nodded, just to make Ohno feel better, because truth was that he didn’t understand Ohno’s feelings. Sho had never had a home, or brothers. He had never had a family, so he didn’t know what it felt like. What could he possibly know about bad relationships between siblings? 

Nothing. 

So he did all he could do at that very moment. He hugged Ohno tight against his chest. He caressed his head, and whispered in his ear. 

“You’ve got nothing to be worried about. I’ll be with you all the time, right by your side. If your brother tries something on you, I’ll stop him. I’ll protect you with all I have, that I can promise. I thought I had lost you once” Sho posed his forehead against Ohno’s. “And that’s more than what I can stand. Satoshi, no matter how much of a sly devil your brother may be, I have your back”. 

Ohno smiled to his words and leaned in to kiss Sho’s lips. It had been just too long since the last time he had tasted them. 

After that shy kiss, came another, and yet another, until a noisy voice interrupted them coming out of a speaker on the ceiling.

“Calling doctor Ohno and parsley-hater Sho to the bridge. We’re at range of Sami’s asteroid. Please, hurry up and get yourselves here as soon as… What the hell? Come here right now, you two!” 

Sho smiled in Ohno’s lips. 

“He’s finally beginning to speak to us in the same way he speaks to his crew. I’m not sure if I’m pleased about it, or concerned”. Sho laughed. 

Ohno smiled and held Sho so tight it almost hurt. Then he pushed him away gently and put a hand on his left cheek. 

“I have to get some stuff from the infirmary”.

“I’ll help you. It’ll be faster. We don’t want to keep the captain waiting”.

Ohno laughed.

“I guess we don’t”. 

And after a quick kiss, they rushed to the infirmary. 


	25. Chapter 25

25

 

When Ohno and Sho got to the bridge, the captain looked daggers at them.

“Look what we’ve got here. I see you’ve finally found your way to the bridge. What the hell took you so long? Were you having a relaxing tour around the ship or what?” Jun was, without a doubt, angry, irascible and in a high state of anxiety. 

“Sorry, I needed to take some things from the infirmary” the doctor apologized.

Jun glared at the two of them from head to toe rising his eyebrows.

“Yeah, I’m sure you did”. 

“Captain, we have connected to Sami’s terminal on Yatai” Masa said in a loud voice, trying to mitigate the uncomfortable atmosphere.

“The monitor in front of the pilot hissed and showed a blurred image for a few seconds while stabilizing until a man looking exactly like doctor Ohno, if he had spent two hours in front on the mirror putting on too much make-up, showed on the screen. It was Sami, and as it seemed, he wasn’t particularly pleased to see Captain Jun. In fact, Sami looked so upset that everyone there noticed straight away that the captain was probably the last face he was wanting to see in the whole Universe. 

“I’ve been interrupted in the middle of my feet manicure to make me answer a call from you?” He frowned. “I’ll definitely fire that useless assistant”. Sami talked in a very affected tone and made quite a lot of gestures with his hands. Far more than needed, Jun thought. Sami sighed from the other side of the screen. “By the way, didn’t I blow up your ship the last time we met, Jon?”

“Nearly, but failed. And it’s Captain Jun, for your information” Jun replied acidly.

“Oh, you got away? _Mooooo_ , then I guess I’ll have to try to shoot you again, Jonie. What it’s quite funny, actually, as that will make you two times deceased” he laughed frivolously looking at his manicure, putting special emphasis on the word ‘ _deceased_ ’. 

“Wait… you know about us being sorted as…?”

“Deceased? Yes, of course I know!” Sami looked almost indignant. “Who do you think you’re talking to, beauty spot?” 

Jun felt fire burning inside of him. He didn’t stand that guy. But that guy knew about the whole ‘deceased’ thing. He knew! And Jun needed that information.

“So, what do you want before I kill you again?” Sami asked, staring at Jun’s clothes disapprovingly and shaking his head.

“I want you to make a deal” he declared loud and clear.

Sami laughed so hard that the static hissing made the speakers echo and whir.

“Oh! You’re funny, Jonie!! How desperate you must be! Coming all the way here to my house, in spite of knowing I’d kill you if I ever saw you again” he kept laughing. “But let me refresh your memory, beauty spot. I don’t do business with people who fail me, and you and your crew did. In a miserable and memorable way, I must add”. 

Sami was now talking in such an affected voice that it almost looked as if he was acting. 

“Maybe you should listen to us before shooting your big guns at us” Jun replied, not worried in the slightest.

“I told you. I don’t do business with airheads like you. I shoot them. You know that. It has been a tremendous stupidity to show your face around here again, Jonie dear. You better put your engines to work at full speed now, because I’m going to make so many holes on that piece of garbage you’re on, it will become metallic powder”. Sami’s voice could sound exaggerated, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t serious. 

“Wait!” Jun shout before Sami could end the video call. Sami stopped his hand in the air, expectant. 

“Are you begging for one last wish before turning to stardust, Jonie?” Sami smiled in a good mood. He loved the part in which he got to push the red button by his console side. 

“Please, wait! You’ve misunderstood me. It’s not with me whom I want you to deal with, but with…” 

Suddenly, from behind the captain’s shoulder, Ohno showed his face, as reluctantly as it was possible to do so, and stared at his twin making a grimace of disgust. As soon as Sami saw Ohno, first, his whole face blanched in astonishment, then his eyes opened widely and his jaw dropped. 

“Sa… But it can’t be…” he mumbled confused, certainly not expecting to see his brother on a ship like Jun’s.

“Hi, jerk” Ohno greeted his twin brother. 

Sami was obviously perplexed. His brain working at full speed to get hold on that unexpected, and almost impossible, situation. 

“ _Mooo, niichanttara!_ Is that the proper way to greet your little brother after so many years?”

“Sorry, I would kick you in the ass, but I can’t do so from here” Ohno replied in a visibly increasing bad mood. Sho looked at him in amazement, he had never heard him talk like that.

“Such a bad guest!” Sami feigned indignation. 

“Such a terrible welcome!” Ohno said overflowing sarcasm as well.

Masa and Jun could hardly believe that the man that was now leaning over the monitor in a defiant pose while bickering with his own blood, was the same peaceful and sensitive doctor they had just added to the crew. 

“Why are you with those nobodies? I thought you had better taste than that? I made you on one of those fancy scientific labs playing with people’s genomes” Sami reclined on his chair trying to act unaltered, yet weird and exaggerated.

“Are you playing tricks on me, you dork? I’m sure you already know that the lab I was working on was destroyed, along with the whole solar system in which it was, so don’t you dare play with me”. Ohno’s tone was so steely it had made everyone else on the cockpit silent. 

Sami bit his lip and shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly at his brother.

“And what if I know?” Sami’s tone had suddenly turned defiant. 

“I want information. Information that you have. And I want you to tell it to me”. Ohno was talking now in a low tone. 

Jun thought he would had made a great leader. 

Masa thought he was kind of scary for a peaceful doctor. 

Sho though he was being so sexy he couldn’t take his eyes away from him.

But Sami laughed. 

“And what makes you think I’ll be dealing with you and your gang of donkeys?”

“You know everything there is to know about what I want. And I know everything there is to know about you, _brother._ I’m sure that information would interest a lot of people. Do you get my drift?”. 

Ohno’s eyes were relentless. Sami swallowed. 

“And what if I shot you now?” Sami answered back, as if he’d been cornered. 

Ohno smirked. 

“You know me, Sam. Do you think I’d be so careless to come here without a backup plan?”

They glared at each other for what seemed to last an eternity, then, Sami looked away and took a deep breath. 

“Only you and the captain” He said.

“I’ll bring the captain and my trustworthy man” Ohno replied.

Sami jumped on his seat.

“Oh! So you got yourself a ma-?” Ohno ended the transmission without a second look at the screen, leaving Sami speaking half way, and turned to Captain Jun. 

“Done. We’re in”. 

The doctor was smiling.


	26. Chapter 26

26

 

Yatai was a big catalogue of every type of business you could possibly think of. If there was something that could be sold, you would definitely find it there. If there was something that couldn’t be sold, you would find it there anyway. Jun, Ohno and Sho walked by the main street dodging aliens from every corner of the Universe, taking good care of their wallets and their backs. Jun leaded the way, as he was the only one who knew how to get to Sami’s ‘lair’. Or shop. Or however you wanted to label it as. One way or another, it wasn’t at plain sight, that was for sure. Jun turned right and entered a labyrinth of alleys followed by the doctor and the clone. After a while, he stoped in front of a rusty sign with the word ‘Pareedo’ written on it.

“It’s here” he announced to his new crew members. 

Sho looked at it with curiosity. 

Ohno rolled his eyes. 

Jun knocked on the door twice. From a point over the door’s threshold a blue light scanned them; then, the door slid to one side and let them in. 

On the other side of the door everything was so showy, golden and flashy that they had to narrow their eyes to adjust to the dazzling light and the bright colors. 

“Such a bad taste” Ohno muttered looking around in disgust. 

“Such a bad-mannered dead man” a voice reached them from an indefinite location of the ceiling. 

“Are you hiding from me, Sam?” Ohno asked the air rising an eyebrow.

“I’m no-! Of course I’m not hiding from you! Why would I?” The voice squeaked. “Do come in” It added, once it regained a calmed tone. 

And as it did, a red and golden door opened by their right.

They went through it, which lead to a wide stair that went down. It was much darker on that side of the door. The three men followed the stairs until they saw another flashy door just in front on them. It opened automatically as they got closer to it, opening to an enormous and overdecorated office-like room. On one side there was a big throne, as old fashioned as excessive, and Sami was sitting on it, miraculously achieving to occupy it completely.

“Welcome to my home” he said in a pompous voice. 

“You mean you live here? For real?” Ohno exclaimed in surprise. “Now I’m truly starting to worry about you, brother” his tone was as sarcastic as it gets.

Sami glared at the doctor but decided to ignore his words. 

“So, as I don’t like you, and I bet you don’t like me either, God knows why… Why don’t we get to the point and skip the greetings and courtesy?” Sami suggested twisting his lips as he fixed his eyes on his brother, who was kind of touching everything on the room without his direct permission. 

“I beg you” Ohno muttered with sarcasm. 

“So, you want information and to get out of my asteroid alive. Is that so?”

“And to take away the ban you have over the Arashi’s crew here, as well as _do business_ with them again” Ohno completed barely paying attention to Sami. 

Sami was getting madder every second he was in front of his twin and his attitude.

“See? This is exactly why I left our parent’s house! _Moooo!!_ ” Sami yelled feeling impotent and hurt in his pride. He usually scared people, aliens, every living organism! But there was his brother, touching all his things and ignoring him as if they were back to their childhood. Always lost in his curiosity, never paying attention to him. That was the reason why he had decided to devote himself to know everything he could. To win over his absent-minded exasperating twin at least in that field.

“Do you really want to talk about that now?” Ohno replied making a very surprised face. 

“No! I want to do business, and have you out of here as soon as possible!”

“Good!” Ohno exclaimed. Then sat right in front of his brother. “You know what we want”.

“And what do I get in exchange for giving you that information?” Sami frowned.

Ohno smirked.

“Keeping your secrets… secret”. 

Sami put a hand over his chest in a far too affected pose, and opened his mouth all he could.

“I can’t believe my ears. What? My oh-so-perfect brother is blackmailing me? I don’t recognize you anymore!” Sami took his other hand to his forehead, as if he was about to faint.

“Oh, come on! Cut it out already! Enough of games. I’ve been lied to, I’ve been sent to a horrible experiment base, I’ve been half dead, I’ve been labeled as deceased and targeted for a crime I would never commit! I’ve escaped a planet under invasion and a whole solar system being destroyed. I’ve lost all the lives of the people I was fighting to protect and I’ve won myself an enemy I know nothing about for doing so! And now I have to put up with you and your stupid tricks?! Enough already!!” 

Jun, Sho and Sami remained silent as Ohno let out all the frustration he had been keeping inside. He had finally reached his limit. His eyes narrowed while frowning in anger and desperation.

“Sami, right now I’m definitely not the brother you used to know, and if I have to blackmail you to fix this mess, you can bet I will”. Ohno concluded.

“Satoshi…” Sami whispered.

“Don’t” he cut him off. “Tell us all you know about what we want to know, and I promise you that you won’t have to see me ever again. I’ll keep your past in the past, and our present apart from each other. It’s a good deal”.

Sami looked at the three men and then fixed his eyes on his brother’s.

“I’ll do it for half the price. Keep my past locked away. That’s all I ask for”.

Sho gazed at Ohno sideways, looking for a shadow of relief on his face after hearing those words, but his face seemed to be chiseled in stone.

“Deal” was all Ohno replied. 


	27. Chapter 27

27

 

After the worst part of the negotiation had passed, Sami went back to his flashy and affected personality, while Ohno remained on the back, letting Jun make all the questions. 

“So, what do you want to know, beauty spot?”

“As I understand this time we have free credit, let’s start from the beginning. Official Yonie sent us to take some meds to Lab Alfa. Why us? I’ve thought all the time that there was something fishy with such an easy, yet well payed, job”. 

“And you should have listened to yourself, dear. Of course it was! Why would anyone pay twice for a job that the Federation Post Office could have easily done for free? I’ll tell you why. That pretty planet filled with obedient clones willing to terraform all sorts of planets along the galaxy for us, was in fact as ugly and dark as it gets. It honestly took me by surprise that my brother had accepted to work in a place like that… until I found out he knew nothing about what was really going on there. Typical of him” Ohno glared at Sami being completely ignored by him. “Anyways. To make it short, there were some cruel and oh-so-very-not-official experiments going on there, for which they needed special chemical substances such as boost drugs, venoms and the like. All illegal stuff they had to disguise as common meds. This is where you and your crew fit, mister beauty spot. Cunning official Yonie hired you, unofficially, and gave you that unregistered delivery job so no-one could link it to the Federation. And, in case that the existence of that special delivery came to light, they could easily close the file on it as smuggling, and only you would be held responsible for it, not the Federation. Or well, the clandestine part of the Federation to which Yonie belongs, I must clarify”.

Jun just couldn’t believe his ears. His whole ship had been framed and deceived by a Federation corrupt official son of a bitch who belonged to a secret faction hidden within the Federation. No joke!

“And the invasion?” Jun asked already in a very bad mood.

“That was a mere coincidence, as convenient and crazy as it may sound. The gur-dre have been wanting to get their hands on those human clones for a while now. God knows what for! I don’t want to know, if you don’t mind me saying, dear. So, the invasion was a coincidence, yes, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t help Yonie’s group of psychopaths. After they had recovered from the surprise of being attacked, they decided to make the most of that unlikely circumstance. In fact, they soon realized it was the perfect chance to cover the tracks of what they’ve been doing on A-3X-4- What an ugly name for a planet, by the way. Anyway! They took all the experiments results with them while the planet was still burning, and exaggerated the real danger that the gur-dre represented to the Federation. As Lab Alfa was the only inhabited planet of the whole Solar System of Jenova, they pushed and pushed until they obtained permission to blow it up, reducing all the clandestine experiment’s proofs to ashes. They got rid of them, and of any possible witness. If there’s no proof, there’s no crime”.

Ohno clenched his fists out of anger while shedding tears for the lives lost on that day. He was so angry he felt his chest burn from inside out.

“Bastards!” Ohno yelled.

“Sons of bitches” Jun muttered. 

Sho was silent, standing in the center of the room, bitting his lower lip. That was what clones’ lives meant to the Federation, he thought in frustration. Dispensable things. 

“But that doesn’t explain why Ohno is considered a war instigator” Sho said, trying to concentrate on the present. 

“Well… the story gets more and more complicated. It’s not easy to just blow up a whole solar system, you know. Yonie and the like played well their cards, and decided to tell some lies” Sami gestured exaggeratedly. “Like saying that the gur-dre had actually attacked the planet with the sole purpose of getting hold of the clones for a rebellious and oh-my-God-so-dangerous group that wanted to dethrone the Federation using those very clones as an army. And the Federation bought it. Can you believe it?! But they went a little further than that” Sami laughed bitterly. “And, as my dear brother here had been digging too deep into the Lab Alfa database, and was just about to spoil all their efforts to keep those horrible experiments in secret, they decided to use him as their scapegoat and put the blame on him. Nobody would get to them if the man who was considered the war instigator was some Ohno that no-one had ever heard about, who happened to work on a completely different section of the laboratory than them. Two birds with one stone”. Sami shrugged his shoulder and reclined back on his flashy throne. 

“So, in the public eye, by killing all the clones they stoped the gur-dre invasion and their war plans, saving the galaxy as the great fucking heroes they are, right?” Sho managed to say, trying hard to control all he was feeling at that very moment.

“That, while getting away unpunished with the experiments results, leaving no trace of their misdeeds whatsoever by killing anyone who knew about them, and destroying all existing proofs. Yes, that would be it” Sami added in a carefree way. 

Ohno was so mad he was speechless. 

“And what about the database?” Jun asked Sami, making the most of that rare opportunity in which they seemed to be allowed to ask all they wanted to. 

“Oh! That? That’s nothing more than a mere database error. As your ship was in Jenova when the attack took place, the system thought it was destroyed in the extermination that followed the invasion. And along with it, the three registered crew members. Really, honey, how can you fly a ship with only three people? It’s got to be so boring!”

“Well, we’re six now” Jun shut him off. “Then, can it be fixed?”

“The database? Of course. Here on this very Yatai, actually. If you want to…” Sami smirked naughtily. 

“Ohno’s war instigator thing too?” Sho asked right away.

It took Sami some time to answer, as if he was evaluating how to answer to that particular question. He then sighed and leaned back. 

“I think that won’t be possible, as for now. As long as my big bro is considered a war instigator, he will be seized and most probably executed if he suddenly ‘comes to life’ again. You have to find Yonie first and deal with that bastard, you honeys. Make him undo Sato’s entry modification”. 

Sho turned to Jun with imploring eyes. Jun hold his look and then clicked his tongue. 

“Okay, I get it! Stop looking at me with those puppy eyes! We’ll fix Ohno’s situation and _then_ we’ll come back to put us back on the realm of the living souls again. Good?”

Sho smiled widely and turned to Ohno. 

Sami didn’t lose sight of Sho and Satoshi body language and how they looked at each other. Sami smirked and rubbed his hands.

“So! And who is this handsome muscle guy here?” He loaded each and every one of his words with affected emphasis. “Who are you, tight pants? Do you fancy doing some business on the back room?”

“Don’t even look at him!” Ohno bursted not being able to control himself in front of his twin. 

“Oh!! I see! So you’ve finally found yourself a man!” Sami was having just too much fun to be willing to stop chuckling and mocking his brother. “I’ve always known you were gay, but I never thought that you had such a good taste in men” he added in an angelical smile.

“Oh! Shut up already! Captain, ask him anything to close his mouth, I’m begging you”. Ohno turned his back on Sami.

“It’s just too funny! My perfect brother, not only considered dead and a war instigator, but actually being a clone’s rights fighter and a tender lover” Sami laughed out loud. 

“Captain, are we finished with this makeup freak? Can I strangle him now?”

“Sato, don’t be like that. I’m happy for you. You’ve finally found love. It’s almost a miracle that someone’s willing to put up with you. Really. But, hey, maybe that way you’ll stop looking as if you had a stick stuck on you ass”.

“That’s it, I’m going to kill him” Ohno announced to the captain. 

Jun and Sho just stepped away, not knowing what had gotten into those two all of a sudden. All they knew was that they were having a serious talk with the sly Sami when, out of a sudden, everything had gone nuts. 

“Okay… so, I think that’s all for now. Send us all the info you have on that lowlife of Yonie, will you? And don’t get too confortable, we’ll be back soon, Sami. Count on it” Jun stared at the flashy Ohno’s twin brother with an intense look. 

“Please, don’t come back too soon” he begged in return, feigning dramatic boredom. “Ciao, ciao. I’ll send the info on our particular villain Yonie to your ship right away”. 

“You better” Ohno looked daggers at him. 

Sami swallowed, and the three members of the Arashi left that corrupted asteroid behind.

 


	28. Chapter 28

28

 

As soon as Jun, Ohno and Sho had entered the ship, alive and on their two feet, Nino came running to them, checking if they still had all their extremities intact. Jun dodged him and went straight to the cockpit. Only after he had made sure Sami had sent everything he had on Yonie to them, he told Masa to set course and set a prudential distance between them and Sami’s asteroid. Just in case. 

Just in case Sami reconsidered the non-shooting at them thing. 

You could never be too cautious when it came to people who ruled his ownlittle world. Or moon. Or asteroid. Or whatever. They tended to overreact a little when cornered. 

“So it went well”, Masa smiled at his captain.

“More or less. We’ve gotten our hands on the information we wanted, but we’re gonna need to deal with a little more of trouble before we can put things back to normal”.

“So… Are we still dead to the Universe?”

“Yep”.

Masa took Jun’s hand and kissed it tenderly, half ignoring what he was saying. He was just happy that he had made it back safely from Sami’s asteroid and his unpredictable mood. And besides, he loved it when there were only the two of them on the bridge. Or in any other room, for the matter. 

“You don’t look happy, Jun. Is it that bad?”

Jun smiled at him while caressing the back of Masa’s head.

“Don’t worry. It’s just that it’s going to be far more troublesome than expected. That’s all”. 

Masa grinned to himself. ‘The problem is that things have gotten out of control, huh?’, he thought as he tried to un-frown Jun’s forehead. 

 

Meanwhile, on the other side of the ship, in the kitchen area, there was quite a lively fuss going on. After the news on Sami’s meeting became old, Nino started to teach Ohno and Kazuna how to properly use the cooker, while Sho tried his best at setting the table, which seemed to be a more problematic thing than expected, as he didn’t know where the cutlery or the dishes were. It was so loud in the kitchen that it almost looked as if they were preparing a party. As soon as the doctor understood the basics of the cooker, he started cooking a traditional recipe from his home planet with Kazuna and Nino that, more than helping him, were just getting in the way. 

Nino seemed to be quite happy in the kitchen assistant role, and kept asking Ohno about his home planet and his life there, monopolizing the whole conversation. Soon Kazuna felt out of place. He didn’t want to listen to their constant chatter about things that had happened years before he was even born, so he left Ohno and Nino in the kitchen and went to sit by Sho’s side, who had finished his only task of setting the table and was now bored and lying on the sofa.

 

“Dinner is almost done”, announced Ohno about fifteen minutes later. “Could you call the captain and Masa?”, he asked with a smile on his lips looking at Sho. 

“I’ll do it”, Nino said right away, ignoring Sho as he was already standing up from the sofa. Nino pressed the switch next to the communication panel by the door and talked in a loud voice. “Captain J! Mister Pilot! Dinner is ready—! Stop doing whatever you’re doing. Ahem! We have real food this time!!”

“Pír-paprí”, singed back Masa’s voice. Then static hissing and silence.

Captain Jun and Masa entered the room a few minutes after that, and soon, the kitchen became a real celebration. Jun and Sho told everyone about their disastrous meeting with B’ugsnak in detail, laughing really loud while doing so, to which followed the amazing story of Ohno’s arguing ability when it came to siblings. The topic changed then to their recent adventure at Yatai asteroid. After that, Jun, Masa, Nino and Ohno kept talking about their siblings, their childhood and the time where this or that had happened. Little by little, Kazuna and Sho’s contribution to the chatter decreased, until they turned completely silent. They had no stories to tell about their childhood, as they’d had none, nor stories to tell about their family, nonexistent as well. The closer they had ever been to have a family was the relationship between them and the other clones on Lab Alfa. All dead now.

But no-one seemed to notice their lost expressions and frozen smiles. 

The lively talk between the ‘biologic humans’ kept going on and on, growing stronger, funnier, and difficult to understand to the two clones. 

At some point, Kazuna simply stood up and left the room. 

Alone and in silence.

Unnoticed. 

 

 


	29. Chapter 29

29

 

When Sho realized Kazuna’s absence, he followed him. He found him on the bridge, seating on Masa’s chair, gazing at the stars in silence. 

“You’re here”, Sho said to make Kazuna notice his presence. 

Kazuna didn’t reply, but a slight nod of his head let Sho know he had heard him. 

“What are you doing here all by yourself?”

Kazuna took a deep breath before taking a brief look at Sho.

“There’s got to be more”, he said cryptically, lost in his own thoughts. Lost in the stars.

“More? Of what?” Sho asked him while seating on the copilot chair, his body turned to Kazuna.

“Clones. Like you and me”. Kazuna’s voice sounded sad.

“There must be. Tons of them, in fact. On those terraformed planets they were made for and sent to, don’t you think?”

“Oh… Yeah. On the new planets. If they’ve made it they’ll be there… maybe”. 

“Kazuna”, Sho leaned forward, leaning his elbows on his knees. “Are you okay?”

Kazuna leaned back, his eyes fixed on the scenery on the other side of the thick glass. As if he was unable to stop looking at the stars. For a while he remained silent, then, suddenly he turned his head to Sho. 

“We don’t belong here, Sho”. 

Sho wasn’t expecting that. He sat upright and frowned at Kazuna.

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m sure you have noticed it too. We’re not like them. We don’t have memories of our childhood, nor funny stories to tell about our family. We don’t have a family. All we’ve ever got was on A-3X-4. A planet that no longer exists. We don’t belong anywhere, really. It doesn’t matter how you look at it, Sho, no matter how hard we try to act like them, we’re not like them. I see it every time I look at Nino. For them, we are nothing more than mere copies of _true_ humans. They’re kind to us, I know”, Kazuna rushed to add as Sho was about to interrupt him, “but they don’t see us as equals. Haven’t you noticed? Sho… Only you and I are like this. Only we are the same. We won’t find a place to belong here”.

Sho stood up and walked the room up and down trying to clear up his mind. What Kazuna was saying made no sense. Or did it? They didn’t have a past, or a family, so what? They were humans. Wasn’t that what Kazuna was always trying to prove? That they were equals to humans? No. That they were _real_ humans?

“No, it’s not like that. They don’t care about our past, I mean, if we have it or not. The captain treat us just as good, or as bad, as the other crew members”.

“They’re just putting up with us, Sho. Don’t be misled. If Ohno hadn’t boarded the ship with us, we would be as good as dead now. Freezing out there”. He pointed outside.

“I think you’re wrong. You’re exaggerating things. I don’t think they are like that at all”.

“Sho, face it. It’ll be easier. Let’s get off on the next planet and start a new life. We could go to a place where no-one knows we’re clones and-”

“What?! Have you gone mad? What has gotten into you all of a sudden? Are you saying all this because we don’t have a stupid childhood?” Sho suddenly became upset. 

“You don’t have to see your face on somebody’s face everyday knowing that you’re the copy!” Kazuna bursted in anger.

“But what you’re saying makes no sense! We can’t leave just like that, with everything that’s going on. And besides, if the Federation knows Ohno is alive they’ll seize him for a crime he hasn’t committed. I can’t let that happen. Ohno can’t leave the ship just now, we have to fix his database entry to clear the suspicions over him before we can go anywhere”.

Kazuna looked away from Sho while making a serious face.

“I wasn’t talking about Ohno”.

“What do you mean?” Sho found it hard to ask that simple question.

“I was talking about you and me. _Only_ you and me”.

Sho was speechless. He gave a few steps here and there unable to close his mouth in astonishment. Unable to say a word. He was by no means going anywhere without Ohno. Never. He couldn’t believe Kazuna would ever suggest such a thing. 

“Sho, don’t tell me that you really think Ohno loves you. You can’t be so naive! You’re just an experiment to him. Don’t you see? Mere academic interest, you fool”.

Enough. That was it. Sho was listening no more. His heart ached, his breathing pierced him, his eyes began to itch. He pressed his lips. 

“I’m not talking to you if you keep saying things like those!” Sho bursted in anger. “You have no idea what’s between Ohno and me! You’re feeling out of place because you have no stupid stories to tell, that’s all. Don’t try to make me doubt him just because of your insecurities!”

Kazuna looked at Sho with a sad look in his eyes.

“Do as you wish. But sooner or later you’ll realize that what I’m saying is the truth. And then, it will hurt twice”.

It wasn’t the truth. It wasn’t, it wasn’t, it wasn’t. Sho kept repeating to himself as he left the bridge in rage. What had been all that? Of course they were seen as equals on that ship! Of course they belonged there! Of course Ohno loved him!

Of course… Of course… Of course.

Sho heard the sound of laughter coming from the kitchen area as he walked the corridors. His feet stopped suddenly as he found himself wondering if they would have noticed that Kazuna and him weren’t there anymore. 

Wondering if they cared.

 


	30. Chapter 30

30

 

Sho walked from left to right, up and down the corridors, with Kazuna´s words still echoing in his head. Kazuna wasn’t right, that wasn’t the truth, of course it wasn’t. But still, it bothered him. Why did it bother him so much? He suddenly stopped his wandering and took a deep breath. He just needed a moment to think. Kazuna’s words were just… just… just nothing! The sound of laughter came to him yet again, loud and clear. He wasn’t even close to the kitchen area. They must be having a really good time. Sho tried to picture Ohno’s face on his head. Would he had noticed he was absent? 

No. That kind of thoughts wouldn’t take him anywhere. Sho shook his head while heading to the kitchen area. Surely Ohno had noticed! He reached the kitchen threshold and took a peak inside. In the room, Ohno was seating on the sofa, shoulder to shoulder with Nino. The captain and the pilot were there too, smiling at Nino in expectation. As it seemed, he was telling them yet another funny story from his childhood. Sho put all his attention on Nino. Sho might had had a short life, but he wasn’t a fool. It was clear as day to him that Nino just couldn’t get enough of Ohno’s laughter, of Ohno’s reactions to his stories, of Ohno’s sparkling eyes. Sho bit his lip and gave a step back. Nino was almost leaning on him.

Had Kazuna been right? Hadn’t Ohno noticed he wasn’t there by his side anymore? Or maybe… What if he just didn’t care?

No! He was biased by Kazuna’s bitter words. That was it. Sho put his hands on his ears. No. Just, no. 

He left the corridor half walking backwards and turned right on the next corner. He then went straight to the passengers’ dorms. He found the room that had been assigned to him and got inside closing the door behind him right away. He thought it would have been great if he was tired. If he could just lay on the bed and fall asleep at once. But he had been created to resist longer, to need less sleep, to bear long days and tough nights, fresh and full of energy. Sometimes, being genetically modified could be a real pain in the ass, he thought. He just wanted to put his mind to rest, to stop thinking. He didn’t want to yield to Kazuna’s words.

He got himself under the sheets and closed his eyes stubbornly. 

And waited. 

The loud chat and laughter reached that part of the ship as well. Or maybe he had just too good of a hearing. Once again, his modified genes. He clicked his tongue and covered his ears. 

“Sleep, Sho. And tomorrow, everything will be all right”.

 

Meanwhile, in the kitchen area, the captain and Masa announced they were going to bed. Too much had happened since the invasion on A-3X-4, and if that Yonie guy was as troublesome as he seemed to be, they were going to need all the rest they could get. The two men left the room, leaving Nino and Ohno by themselves. 

“I think I also should be going to bed” Ohno said. 

“So soon? What about one last drink? What do you say? You and me?”, Nino really hoped the doctor accepted his offer. After that night, he could officially say with no regrets that he felt completely fascinated by that man. He was just too interesting, too full or surprises, too cute for Nino to be able to resist it. 

“Thank you, Nino, but I think I really should be going now. Besides, I want to search for Sho. He has barely been here all night… I don’t want to overreact but, I don’t know… Ships, aliens, fishy asteroids… too many new experiences at once”. 

Nino felt as if he had just swallowed a bunch of nails. He smiled, though. 

“You worry a lot for him…” Nino himself wasn’t sure if he had meant it in a good or bad way. 

Ohno smiled warmly at him. He was just too attractive, too alluring.

“He’s the best thing that has ever happened to me in my life”. Ohno’s reply was so straightforward that Nino felt the hit of his words like a hammer on his chest. 

“You should treat him right, then”, Nino tried to sound like the perfect good guy who was being kind to the people he had just meet. Not like the guy who couldn’t care less about that goddamned Sho, and who actually wanted to take the doctor to his room right now.

“Good night, then”. Ohno’s words brought him back to reality.

“Good night. Have a good rest… Both of you”. Nino bit his tongue and left the room acting as if he couldn’t care less about the doctor. 

By the time he walked down the corridor, he had already decided that, with boyfriend of without it, he was definitely going to try to seduce doctor Ohno. There weren’t a lot of chances to succeed, that was right; but neither were there a lot of chances of meeting someone as interesting as him in the middle of Space either. And maybe there wouldn’t be more. He had to try. 

 

As soon as Nino left the room, Ohno went straight to Sho’s room. But when he tried to open the door, he found it locked. He frowned a little surprised. Maybe he had made too many assumptions when thinking they would sleep together on the same bed. Ohno stepped away from the door with a shadow of disappointment on his face. He caressed the metal surface of the door and sighed. He wanted so much to cuddle with Sho! Ohno sighed again and turned around to face the corridor, in search for an empty room he could use. He felt exhausted after being half-dead and everything that had happened afterwards.

Ohno tried tentatively a couple of doors, until he found one open. An empty compartment. 

“This will have to do”, he whispered to the dark room before getting inside and closing the door behind him, wishing Sho had been by his side that night.

 


	31. Chapter 31

31

 

Kazuna couldn’t sleep. He felt terrible for what he had said to Sho. He was just frustrated, sad, overwhelmed by everything that had happened since the invasion; and he had taken it out on Sho. He had always wanted to escape Lab Alfa to live free as a human, go on an adventure and meet all kinds of creatures. But since he had actually left the planet, he had been stuck on that ship doing boring things. Meanwhile Sho, the one who would had lived happily on that laboratory his whole life, was the one living adventures, landing on moons and asteroids, meeting strange aliens and fitting so well into the crew it made Kazuna feel left behind. To make things worse, Sho also had a perfect partner, someone waiting for him. Someone who loved him. 

But then look at him. Kazuna took a look at his own hands. His story was just too different from Sho’s. Everyone had stories to tell on that ship. Everyone was connected to one another. Everyone but him. So he selfishly thought that, Sho being a clone like him, should stick together with him, the only other clone on the ship. And then was when his mouth started moving and saying all kinds of horrible things to him. 

He felt terrible. He was just jealous of everyone else. Jealous of Sho.

He had been all his life assuring that clones and biologic humans were the same, and now, there he was, telling the only other clone on the ship that they weren’t. 

Kazuna took a deep breath. He had to apologize to Sho. What he had said about Ohno was just going too far. He had been cruel.

Kazuna stood up from the pilot’s chair and walked to the door, when suddenly his feet stopped and his muscles tensed. He remained frozen in the middle of a step under the threshold. 

He felt danger. 

 

Sho woke up all of a sudden, eyes wide open, feeling completely awake. There came that strange feeling again. The feeling of danger. His muscles were tense, his body on the alert. He sharpened his ears, trying not to move a single muscle, and listened carefully. 

The ship was in complete silence.

 

On the opposite side of it, Kazuna was now doing the same as Sho: Listening. On the alert. There was something wrong going on, he was sure of it. Even if he couldn’t hear it or see it. 

Specially if he couldn’t hear it. 

Because they were on a ship. Sure there should be at least a few noises going on simultaneously. But there were none. Just silence. 

And the shadow of an unknown presence. 

Kazuna reached for the door handle and very carefully closed it, paying attention to the slightest noise while doing so. That door was the only way to enter the bridge. If someone or something had somehow sneaked on the ship, it was top priority to not let them reach the bridge. If someone gained control of the Arashi, they were lost. 

“I’ll leave the rest to you, Sho. I know you’ve sensed it too” Kazuna whispered to the sealed bridge’s door, hoping his words were true.

 

Sho had gotten out of bed and was now in front of his room’s door. His body urged him to go check the ship, his head only thinking of Ohno. He needed to check if he was all right. With a quick move of his wrist he opened his door and stepped outside, and as soon as he did so, he felt a sudden hit on his head coming from behind his back. 

“We have one”, he heard a voice say right before everything went momentarily dark. 

Sho fought with all his strengths not to lose consciousness, but the more he fought the more they tightened some kind of wire around his arms and legs. His vision was blurred and his head hurt as hell, but he wasn’t surrendering to those strangers. Where did they come from? How had they boarded the ship? Why and where were they taking him to? But all of a sudden, all those questions lost any importance to Sho, because right then, those shadows in the shape of men were now taking Ohno out of a room by force.

“Let him go!!” Sho cried with all his strengths. His voice was hardly a yell. 

“Do something with this one, he’s making me nervous already. The bastard isstrong as hell!” an unknown voice whined. Then Sho felt a needle on his neck, and as everything started to fade to black, he saw Ohno’s eyes filled with fear and horror fixed on his, just a few centimeters away in front of him. He could reach him if he stretched his hand. Sho tried to get to Ohno, but whatever they had injected him had already started to affect his senses. He lost his balance, tottered and fell to the ground. Everything became confusing, but he kept crawling in Ohno’s direction. Never reaching him.

“Sho!!” He heard Ohno’s voice distant, as if heard underwater. 

The last thing Sho saw before fainting was the blurry image of Ohno’s eyes looking at him in desperation as he was being taken away from him.

 

 


	32. Chapter 32

32

 

“Here’s the other one”, Nino heard an unknown guy say before covering his mouth as soon as he opened his eyes in the darkness of his room. Before he could even realize it, he had been tied in wire and threatened to be given a sedative injection if he tried anything stupid. He wasn’t even awake enough to understand what the hell were those men doing on his fucking ship, much less to try and do something stupid. His inner voice kept repeating ‘What the fuck?’ in a loop. 

He tried to resist the wire but it was really well tightened. He couldn’t see who were the attackers as they were wearing black from head to toe. Literally. They menaced him with the sedative injection again. Nino shook his head. ‘No, thank you, I prefer to be fully awake to see who all of you are so I can kick your asses later’, he thought. 

“Ok, Jack, take him with the others”.

‘Jack? Who the hell is Jack?’ Nino decided in an instant to play along with that bunch of soon-to-be kicked in the ass space pirates, or whatever they were. Nino followed Jack, the kidnaper number one of his list. The Arashi was so silent that it seemed frozen in time. The engine wasn’t running. Those people knew very well how to do their thing. 

Jack brought Nino out of the ship by a narrow tunnel stuck on the main hatch of the Arashi to a different vessel. Bigger, newer and shinier. That wasn’t the ship of a bunch of space pirates, Nino thought. But, if he was mistaken, who wore those guys and why were they kidnaping him?

Jack lead him to the ugliest part of the attackers’ ship. Dark, full of red lights and unwelcoming reinforced doors. Once on their vessel there was another man following him, in case he tried to escape. But, escape to where? They were in the middle of Space, for fucks sake! Not that he could get out of the ship and run for help out there. 

“Hi, Shil, I bring the other one”. 

‘Was it pride on Jack’s tone? No kidding!’ Nino clicked his tongue. ‘Unbelievable’.

Shil opened the double layered reinforced door and Jack urged Nino to cross it to the other side. As soon as Nino set his eyes on the new room he understood what Shil’s job actually was. 

It was a fucking prison. He was the prison guard. No joke! 

All cells where made of glass-like material, so you could see all the prisoners at one glance. Jack dragged Nino to a certain cell before he could take a look around. It was quite dim inside the room. Jack opened a certain door, untied the wires around his wrists and pushed him roughly on purpose so Nino fell down and the floor became his first contact with his cell. 

Nino cursed as he felt the see-through door close behind him. He turned around just in time to see Jack leave the prison with a satisfied smile on his lips. ‘I’ll kick your ass triple, Jack’, Nino thought as he followed him narrowing his eyes. 

“Kazuna?” 

Nino turned around startled. Behind him, on the corner of the room was somebody else. The figure stood up and came to the light. Nino almost screamed when he saw his face. 

It was Sho. 

“Is it you, Kazuna?” Sho got closer to him and then his eyes got suddenly sad. “Oh, no… N”

“Shush!!” 

Nino didn’t know what was going on there, but he wanted to know, and if Sho had been kidnaped as well maybe it had to do with the clones. Maybe it was better to play the role of his clone. Maybe that could become the key to understand what was going on and how to fix it. Nino slightly shook his head fixing his eyes on Sho’s. 

Sho understood. 

“N-No! You too?” Sho tried to mask his slid. 

“What is this place?” Nino asked.

Sho shook his head trying hard not to burst into tears. 

“Hey, hey, hey, stop! What’s wrong? I didn’t know you were such a crybaby”.

“They took him if front of me… K… Kazuna, they’ve taken Ohno”.

Nino opened his eyes widely and crawled backwards until he hit the glass wall. They’ve taken the doctor? Nino shook his head. He had started to build a theory around which the high-class-pirates-whatever were only after the clones. They could have mistaken him for Kazuna and that would be why they had kidnaped him as well. That would have made perfect sense. But if they’ve taken the doctor as well… Did it mean all the Arashi’s crew were in danger? And where was Ohno? Why wasn’t he on the next cell?

“We’re in serious problems” Nino whispered. “Very, very serious problems”.


	33. Chapter 33

33

 

Jun woke up to a terrible headache. If he caught the bastard who had hit him on his sleep he better start praying already, because he wasn’t going to let that pass. Jun was mad. Really mad. If that was a joke, he was not laughing. Jun turned around and saw that the bed was empty. Masaki wasn’t there. He frowned.

With a hand on his head and as confused as he was, Jun got out of the bed and stumbled towards the room’s door. It was wide opened. 

“What the…?!”

He peeked at the corridor. Empty. In fact, the ship seemed to be a little too silent to even feel the sense of normality. The captain rubbed his head where it hurt the most and cursed a few times. No. That wasn’t a joke. He had a bad feeling about all that situation. 

Using the wall as a support, he moved forward on the corridor until he reached the bridge. The door to it was locked. Definitely, that wasn’t a joke. Jun knocked on the door repeatedly until he saw what he thought were Nino’s eyes looking at him from the round glass on it. Nino looked at him narrowing his eyes in suspicion.

“What did you locked the goddamned door for?!” Jun yelled at him getting quite irritated. 

Kazuna looked behind him and only after a while he opened the door. Jun went through it in a haste. 

“What the hell do you think you’re doi-?!” 

Even before he could end that sentence Kazuna locked the door again. 

“Captain, we have intruders” Kazuna sentenced. “We have to protect the bridge”.

“What? Wait, what?? That’s impossible, how could anyone have slip-“ Jun stopped all of a sudden. The hit on his head, the silent ship. That strange feeling of everything not going quite right. That made perfect sense. “Where are the others?”, he then asked Kazuna.

Kazuna shook his head. 

“I don’t know. I was here when I sensed something was going wrong. Danger. So I did what I thought was our main priority”. 

“Protect the bridge”.

“Protect the bridge”.

Jun glared at Kazuna for a while.

“You’re Kazuna, not Nino”, he said. Kazuna nodded. “What about the crew? Didn’t you think that was our priority?”

“Sho is with them. I’m sure he sensed the danger as well and-“

“Really? Well, you see, it doesn’t look like there’s nobody else out there to me!” Jun rose his voice even without realizing it himself. “I’m going out to check on them. You can stay here if you want”.

Jun turned around and grabbed the door handle. All he could think of was Masa’s whereabouts. The moment he set foot out of the bridge, he noticed Kazuna was following him. Jun smiled. Good to have reinforcements.

Jun and Kazuna went all over the ship, getting more and more nervous by the second. There was no trace of intruders, neither of crew members. Jun began to shake. Only the engine room was left now. He rushed to it only thinking of Masaki. If anyone had taken him he’ll catch him and make him pay trice for it. Jun run so fast his steps echoed on the corridors. Kazuna run after him. When they reached the engine room they found out the motor was completely dead. Jun dodged it and kneeled behind it, he had seen a lying shape there. The light was dim but he had recognized the shape with only one glance. It was Masaki, lying unconscious on the floor. 

“Masaki!!”, Jun screamed as he lifted his body from the metallic floor. Holding it tight between his arms.

Kazuna got to them and checked Masa’s pulse right away. Practical and fast.

He took a very deep breath.

“It’s okay, Captain. He is alive”. 

Jun eyes filled with tears of relief.

 

Meanwhile on the attackers’ ship, the door to the prison opened. Sho stood up in anxiety, prepared to ask for Ohno to whoever was coming, when his words died on his lips all of a sudden. A big guard was carrying a body over his shoulder. Ohno’s body. 

“Ohno!!” Sho screamed putting himself to the glass wall, as close as he could. “What have you done to him, your bastards!!”

The guard ignored him and opened the door to the cell next to Sho and Nino’s. Then, he roughly threw Ohno’s body inside his cell, closed the door immediately and left the room without saying a word. 

“Ohno! Ohno! Can you hear me? Please, Ohno… please”. Sho kept hitting the glass between them, frustrated for not being able to reach him. Ohno, his Ohno was so close… but with that glass between them it was as if he was on the other side of the galaxy. Sho was desperate. He didn’t even know if Ohno was alive… All he could see was his back. 

And it wasn’t moving. 


	34. Chapter 34

34

 

Ohno felt as if he was drowning. Floating in a dense darkness. Alone. He tried to search for a way out of it, but all he seemed to be able to do was to sink deeper and deeper. He tried to scream, but a warm liquid flooded his mouth. He tried to escape, but his body felt like stone. But he kept fighting. ‘Help, please, help’. 

His lungs felt like they were suffocating as his body went into spasms. Then, he felt a tickling on his toes, and then, nothing. The pain stopped. He couldn’t feel his lungs breathing. 

He felt nothing. 

“Ohno!! Please, Ohno!! Look at me!”

Where did that come from? He knew that voice. That tone.

“Ohno! Please, wake up!”

The voice was crying desperately. So sad it broke his heart. 

Then a repeating noise. The noise of something hitting a glass. Once, twice… And the man’s voice echoing inside of him again and again.

_Sho_. 

Ohno tried to wake up. For him. For Sho. He tried to open his eyelids first. The place where he was wasn’t too bright, but even so, it was brighter than expected. Ohno narrowed his eyes and searched for Sho. He wasn’t in front of him, where there was nothing more than a tall wall of glass.

“Ohno! Ohno!!”

‘Oh’. Sho was behind him. 

Ohno’s eyes finally got used to the brightness of the room. He tried to figure out where he was. An empty cube made of glass? He felt his whole body hurt. He was lying on a dirty floor in a prison-like room. Ohno used all his strengths to move the elbow under his body to turn around, so he could face Sho. 

As soon as Sho saw Ohno’s body react to his call, he continued calling his name, louder and louder. Ohno had heard him, nothing else mattered. Neither Nino covering his ears by his side, nor the prison guard looking daggers at him.

Ohno was alive.

“Ohno! I’m here. Can you hear me?”

Ohno ignored the pain he was feeling all over his body and managed to move it enough to face the ground. He put all his weight on both hands and crawled to Sho’s voice. Now his tone sounded softer. Relieved. Ohno lifted his head until his eyes met his. He was crying, pressing his body against the glass wall that separated them. Searching for him. He had his hand palm pressed against the glass, as if he was trying to get through it and reach him. Ohno crawled to Sho, still feeling his limbs weak, his muscles hurting. 

Ohno got to the glass wall that separated them and slowly lifted his hand to match his, pressing it against the wall. The glass was cold. 

“Sho”, Ohno whispered, not taking his eyes away from Sho’s. 

“Satoshi” Sho’s lips vocalized without making a sound. 

Ohno pressed his forehead against the glass. Exhausted and confused. And as soon as he did so, Sho did the same on the other side of the glass. 

Forehead against forehead. 

Hand against hand. 

Sho shuddered to the touch of the cold glass, wishing he could feel his lover’s warmth instead. Ohno was so close… so close…

And so far away.

On the other side of the Universe, inside a cage made of glass. 

He repeated his name in silence. ‘Satoshi. Satoshi. Satoshi’. His head full of fears and doubts. 

Why have they been attacked and kidnaped? Who were those guys? Where were they taking them to? What were they planning to do with them? Will they take Ohno away again? Will it be the last time he got to see him? 

Was it… the end?


	35. Chapter 35

35

 

Masa woke up in Jun’s arms. He looked at him as he was carrying him, running through the ship corridors heading to the infirmary.

“Jun”, Masa called him in a whisper. “You have blood on your face”.

“Masaki!” Jun stopped his running all of a sudden and lowered his gaze until his eyes met Masa’s. Masa rose his hand and rubbed the thin drop of dried blood that was on Jun’s temple. Jun tilted his head to his hand while briefly closing his eyes.

“We’re taking you to the infirmary, we’ll be right there in a sec-”

“I’m okay, Jun. Just a bit dizzy, that’s all. It’s you who needs to go to the infirmary, as it seems”, Masa tried to smile at Jun to ease his heart, but after what he’d seen, he just couldn’t. “They took them”, Masa said all of a sudden.

Jun began to walk towards the infirmary again, not giving him a reaction to his words. 

“Jun”, Masa called his attention.

“We know” was all the captain said. Then, silence. 

Only when they had gotten to the infirmary, Jun let Masa go. He leaned him on the stretcher with great care.

“Jun, I’m okay. Really. Now, let me get care of that wound of yours”.

“I’m not wounded. I-”

“You’re bleeding” Masa replied pointing at his head with a tone that accepted no discussion. He stood up from the stretcher, and reached for the alcohol and some gauze. “Sit down, please” he told Jun pointing at the stretcher. 

Kazuna looked amazed at how Jun did as Masa had told him to, remaining quiet and still until Masa had finished cleaning and fixing the wound he had on his head.

“Done” Masa dedicated a tiny smile to Jun.

“Thank you” he whispered back. 

Kazuna cleared his throat and got close to them.

“Masa”, he said in a very soft voice. “What happened?”

The pilot expression turned serious as he answered.

“I was on the ship corridors by mere chance, when I saw three men dressed in black from head to toe carrying doctor Ohno and Sho to the cargo deck. I wanted to follow them, but then another man came out of the shadows. The two men got close to the corridor I was at the moment, so I hid as quick as I could. They didn’t see me. I followed those two and-”

“Masa! That was way too dangerous! Why didn’t you call me?” Jun jumped off the stretcher. 

“Because they were then going in the crew’s rooms direction. I feared for your safety, so I followed them. I caught up with them just in time to see Nino being taken away from his room. I was in panic, so I went after them, ready to jump on their heads as soon as I was close enough but, suddenly, on the next corner another man appeared. He tried to hit me with some kind of metal tube but somehow I managed to dodge it. I run to the opposite direction trying to get to the bridge so I could have some power over the ship’s gates and prevent the kidnapping. The man caught up with me near the engine room. He hit me and I hit the floor. I have no idea why he left me there, why those men only took doctor Ohno, Sho and Nino with them, but not me. I crawled into the engine room searching for the ship’s inner transmission panel to warn you two…” Masa lowered his eyelids. “I collapsed before I could do so”.

Jun suddenly run his hands through Masa’s head.

“What are you…? Stop, Jun, stop!” Masa was laughing, as ticklish as he was. Even in a situation like that. “I’m okay! I really am. I only have a small bump on the head. No blood. No concussion. Healthy as ever. So, please, stop”.

Jun looked at him not fully convinced yet but stepping away from him.

“It’s them we have to worry about” Masa added.

“They’re out of our reach…” Kazuna’s voice was less than a whisper.

“What do you mean?” Jun looked irritated.

“Their ship warped as soon as their anchorage to the Arashi was removed…”

Jun hardened his jaw and bit his lips. 

“We don’t know why they took Nino, Sho and Ohno. We don’t know-“

“I think I know why they took Nino”, Kazuna cut out Jun halfway. Masa and Jun turned to him. “It’s just a theory but… I guess they mistook him for me. If you think about it, it makes sense: They wanted the two clones and the doctor who worked in the laboratory of the destroyed clone planet”.

“Kazuna”, Jun sounded very serious, “I have noticed. That’s not what I meant. I know the reason why they took specifically them. What I don’t know is why or what for. Or where to. And most important of all, by whom”.

“But we can’t follow them” Masa said in a sad voice. “They warped”.

“Well”, Jun’s determination showed on his eyes. “Then I guess we only have one option left”.

Kazuna and Masa looked at him in expectation.

“Time to check on how our new agreement with Sami is actually working out”. 

Jun eyes were fierce. Nobody sneaked in his ship and kidnaped his crew. Nobody. 

 


	36. Chapter 36

36

 

“What do you mean by ‘Jun is here’? What Jun? Is it some kind of joke? Besides, didn’t I fired you already?” Sami frowned at his dumb assistant, glaring at him with irritation. Behind him, something moved under the red silk sheets of his bed.

“Mister Sami, you said I could stay as long as I kept track on the Arashi's crew”, the guy was shaky and pale.

“Not when I’m on the bed, you dopey!! Have you no common sense?”

“But Jun, the captain of the Arashi said it’s urgent and-”

“Is he paying you?” Sami cut him out tying his purple silk robe over his naked body with brusque moves.

“No, sir” the assistant lowered his head.

“Then maybe you would want to consider _my_ orders as a priority. Not his. I’m the one spending money on you”.

“Sir”, the assistant cleared his throat, “you’re not paying me either”.

Sami swerved to his left, where the annoying assistant was.

“Oh! Am I not?”

The assistant shook his head.

“You said I have to earn it first, sir”.

“Err… Then, earn it!” Sami yelled making a fuss with his arms, exaggerating all he could to put the non-paying his assistant stuff aside. “Go tell that pain in the ass captain Jon to wait, I have something to finish here…”

“But he’s already in the throne room”.

“Say what?! How scatterbrained can you be?! Did you won a contest on airheading or something? _Moooo_ , I have no privacy on this devious asteroid anymore! All right, I’ll see him in a minute!”, Sami threw him out of his room pushing him through the open door and closing it after him. “ _Moooo!!_ ”

Sami stood in front of the door with both hands on his hips while pulling a cute angry face. 

“Can you believe it? I can rule this whole asteroid but I can’t rule my own time with my lovers. It’s indignant!” Sami went back to the bed and got under the sheets, searching for his companion’s skin naughtily. He kissed the first part of his body he found while whispering.

“Don’t you dare going anywhere sweetie. I’ll be back in a minute” Sami caressed his companion’s back with a longing look on his eyes. “And don’t get dressed”. He bit him playfully and got out of the sheets. 

Sami stopped in front of the tall mirror on one side of the room and touched up his makeup and hair. There was no reason to forget about looking pretty. Even if it was in the event of meeting that inopportune beauty spot captain Jon. Once he was satisfied with his looks, Sami left his room with a few feline steps. 

 

Sami entered the room wearing a silky robe and tons of makeup. Jun shivered at his looks. It was spooky how much Sami and the doctor looked alike, and were so different at the same time. Jun shook his head and concentrated on what had brought him there.

“Jonie, darling. Why here so soon? Did you miss me?” Sami said in a naughty tone, winking at him. 

“Believe me, I didn’t want to see your face so soon either. But it’s an emergency”.

“Didn’t the awesome information I sent you for free on our favorite villain Yonie come in useful?” Sami sat on his golden throne in his usual affected way, getting on Jun’s nerves by doing so. 

“Didn’t have time to check it” Jun was on the offensive. “But someone else did, I asume. As somebody has fucking kidnaped half of my crew just a few hours ago!!After we came to see you! You sold us, scumbag!!” Jun had gotten close to the throne all of a sudden, and if it hadn’t been for the two guards Sami kept beside it, he would have gotten to his very neck. 

“Relax, tiger boy! What are you talking about?”

Jun rose his eyebrows.

“Do you pretend to make me believe that you, the master of information, know nothing on the kidnapping of his own brother?! You must be kidding me!”

Sami’s expression changed at the sight of Jun’s eyes. He could tell that Jun was genuinely furious. He wasn’t playing a prank on him, nor was he lying. Sami stood up and got even closer to Jun, making his guards step aside with a single gesture of his hands.

“What are you talking about?” Jun had never heard such a menacing tone in Sami’s voice ever before. He wasn’t forcing his tone nor exaggerating it. Sami was looking straight into his eyes. No games, no jokes.

“If you know nothing about it, then it’s worse than I thought”, Jun said in a monotone, not moving away from Sami, as close as he may be. “Some hours ago, a bunch of men slipped into my ship, took Sho, Ohno and Nino to their ship and warped the hell out of here. Call me daring if you want, but I have a hunch on who’s behind it. And if the name I have on mind was to be correct…” Jun got even closer to Sami, their noses almost touching. “Only you knew about Ohno, Sho and Kazuna being alive. As well as you know there’s only one man who would be dying to get hold on that information”.

Sami narrowed his eyes for an instant before bursting into laughter and stepping away from Jun. He hadn’t believed Jun to be so naive. 

“Oh, silly pretty little thing!” Sami sat on his throne again. “You’re way too careless, honey, so you always tend to forget the enemies you make along the way”.

Jun frowned at Sami, not taking his eyes away from him for a second.

“What enemies?”

“There was another one who _knew_ about the clones being alive and with you. Maybe someone you’ve affronted lately?” Sami smiled at Jun falsely. “Do you need a slippery hint?”

Then a viscous and disgusting image popped up on Jun’s head. He opened his eyes widely the second he understood.

“Exactly! Our slimy B’ugsnak-Arsley” Sami announced in a resonant voice.

Then, Jun saw it all clear. That damned snake, feeling deeply insulted by Sho and himself, had put a price on their heads all over his side of the galaxy; and then, that interesting piece of information on Sho had reached the ears of the perpetrator of last night’s assault. Jun felt stupid. He had handed the clones and doctor Ohno on a platter to the enemy. 

“Shit!!” Jun punched the wall beside him.

“So, beauty spot, now that you’ve understood the measure of your screwup, what are you going to do about it? How are you going to fix it up and bring MY annoying brother back?” Sami was very angry. Nobody but him messed up with his own blood. 

“You tell me! They warped on our face. And as it seems, on yours too. So much for the best informer on the galaxy! Hah! The one who had no idea whatsoever about the whole mess going on under his powdered nose”.

Sami stood up from his throne brusquely, his temples beating fast and his eyes wide opened. 

“Just give me an hour, Jonie. I’ll get you the information you need. But then, it’ll be your turn. Try not to mess up again or you’ll have to answer to me”. 

“Sami”, Jun called him before he left the room.

Sami turned around but said nothing.

“I’ll find your brother. I’ll bring him back safe along the clone and my own friend. But I need to know something right now. I need to know if my suspicions are correct…”

“Yes” Sami turned around again and gave his back to Jun. “I’m a hundred per cent certain it’s who you’re thinking of”.

“Yonie” Jun whispered.

Sami nodded and left the room while saying.

“Come back in an hour”.


	37. Chapter 37

37

 

The prison gate opened. A man wearing a military jacket full of medals followed by two soldiers entered all full of themselves and got near the glass cells. As soon as Nino saw the man who led the group he stood up abruptly, clenching his fist and about to yell at him when he suddenly remembered he wasn’t supposed to know that face. Because he wasn’t supposed to be Nino. He was supposed to be Kazuna, the clone, who had never met that bastard before. His name died in Nino’s lips before he began to pronounce it. ‘Yonie, you son of a bitch!’, he thought.

“Who the hell are you?!” Nino yelled at him instead. Even if he knew perfectly well who that swine was.

“Are these the clones who survived?” Yonie asked the guard on duty, purposely ignoring Nino’s burst. 

“Yes, sir!”

‘What a good boy’, Nino thought acidly glaring at the guard who had answered.

“I see”, Yonie looked at Nino and Sho in disgust and then walked to the cell next door, where Ohno was still lying on the floor. “So I imagine this one is the _instigator_ ”. There was something wretched in the way Yonie pronounced the word ‘instigator’, which he accompanied with a side grin. 

“Yes, Sir! Doctor Satoshi Ohno, sir!”

“What a noisy dog” Nino muttered in a low voice. He had always hated all that soldier behavior stuff. Yonie turned to him, narrowing his eyes and took a long look at Nino.

“Amazing”, he said after a while, thinking about how that clone looked exactly like the Arashi’s crew member Nino, who he had met before.

“Yeah, I know. I’m damn gorgeous” Nino talked back at him. 

“Ha!!” Yonie bursted out a single laughter. “I didn’t know clones had a sense of humor”. He put acid on his words.

“You should add it to the list of thing you don’t know, _sir_ ” Nino said as sarcastically as he could.

Yonie stopped laughing at once. He wasn’t smiling anymore.

“You better be careful with what you say, doll” Yonie’s voice sounded menacing. “Save your jokes for later. You may need them in the place where you’re going”. This time Yonie’s smile was everything but humorous. Actually, it didn’t look like a smile at all. It was a cruel grin. The kind of grin you saw in sadists. 

Yonie turned his back on them and talked now only to the guard on duty.

“We’re landing in five. Prepare the doctor to be taken to the Court’s Jail. Take the other two to the laboratory. We’ve got lots of theories to test on them”.

As soon as Sho heard his words he run to the cell’s door.

“No! I won’t let you take him away from me again!” He screamed. 

Yonie turned at him with eyes filled with disdain.

“And what exactly are you going to do about it? You’re nothing but a prescindible doll made of flesh and bones” Yonie smiled at him sideways. “You should care for what’s going to happen to you, clone”. 

Yonie made a gesture with his chin and left the prison, followed by his two lapdogs.

“No!!” Sho shouted at his back, being completely ignored by him. 

Before they could realize it, Yonie was already gone. 

“Don’t you turn your back on me!!” Sho fought, hitting the wall glass with his elbow, as if he was trying to get through it.

“Sho” Ohno’s voice was weak. “Sho, please, stop”. He begged. But Sho was too angry to hear him. It was Nino who stopped him and brought him back down to earth. Only then did he hear Ohno’s calling.

“Satoshi”, he whispered to him, calling him for his first name even if they weren’t alone, because Sho knew… He knew what was going to happen, even if he wanted to deny it with all his strength. He could be impetuous, or loud, but he was no fool. He knew the darkness in which they had been plunged into. And he knew that those five minutes before they landed were probably the last ones he would get to see the love of his life. He could sense it. It was a farewell.

Ohno stretched his arm and leaned his hand on the wall glass between them. Sho rushed to do the same. A tear on the corner of Ohno’s eyes told Sho he had also acknowledged the meaning of that very moment. They wouldn’t feel each other skin ever again. They wouldn’t touch their lips, or hold one another in their arms. They wouldn’t ever breath the same air again. Ohno blamed himself for not trying harder to spend the night with Sho after the party at the ship, for now he knew it was to become their last one. Sho blamed himself for doubting Ohno’s feelings earlier that night, after talking to Kazuna, even if it had been for just a moment. There was nothing more than love in those beloved eyes of his. Satoshi’s beautiful eyes.

“Sho, before they come for us, I want you to know that I love you. I’ve always had and I will always do. No matter what happens to us, remember that I love you. Would you do that for me?”

Sho felt tears running down his cheeks.

“Don’t talk as if it was a farewell” Sho fought against the idea of losing him again. Even if, deep inside, he knew it was exactly what was going to happen. 

Ohno leaned his forehead against the glass.

“Promise to me, Sho. Please”.

“But, what nonsense are you saying, Satoshi? How could I forget such a thing?” Sho tried his best to smile at Ohno. “How could I ever forget that the man I love loves me back as much as I do? I would have to be out of my mind, don’t you think?” 

Ohno smiled back at him.

“I love you” he breathed.

“I love you, Satoshi” Sho pressed his lips against the wall, just where Ohno’s forehead was.

The lights in the room suddenly changed from white to red. The guard took a deep breath and stood up. He slowly lift his wrist transmitter to his mouth and called for more guards to help him move the prisoners. Once the reinforcements were inside with them, a dense silence reigned over the room, while an irritating sound kept warning them the ship was landing at that very moment. Then the lights went back to normal and the cells’ doors opened. The guards got hold on Sho first, the one they thought was more likely to give them trouble. Then they immobilized Nino. Only when the two clones were tied and surrounded, they got Ohno. Sho fought to set himself free and get to Ohno, even if he already knew that three men were just too many to win against, even for him. 

“Don’t touch him!” He screamed out loud, helpless. 

Two men dragged Ohno out of the prison as he tried to touch Sho’s hand just one last time. He screamed, kicked and even tried to bit his captors, but it all was futile. They took him away without giving him the chance to feel Sho’s fingertips one last time. 

As soon as the door closed behind Ohno, Sho lose all the strength on both his legs and kneeled to the ground. Defeated. His whole body trembling, his breath chocking with emotion. 

He had lost him again. 

He had lost him forever.


	38. Chapter 38

38

 

Captain Jun, Masa and Kazuna were sitting in silence on the sofas in the kitchen area, just waiting for the time to pass. Each one of them lost in his own thoughts and fears. Jun stood up checking the time on his wrist band.

“It’s time. I’ll be back in a moment”.

In a second, Masa and Kazuna jumped off the sofa at once.

“Let me go with you!” Kazuna spoke fast, with a glimpse of desperation hidden in his voice. 

Jun weighed Kazuna’s look on his eyes and his words, not sure if it would be a good idea to let him leave the ship. As he saw it, sooner or later Yonie would realize he had taken the wrong Nino, and then he would definitely go looking for Kazuna. The real one. 

“It’s too dangerous” Jun finally decided. “Stay on the ship”. 

Jun put a comforting hand on Kazuna’s shoulder as he passed him by, leaving him behind. It didn’t take more than two seconds before he had him standing in front of him again.

“Please. Let me go with you, Captain”. Kazuna’s eyes shone with determination.

Jun was about to tell him to stay on the ship once again when he felt Masa’s soft touch on his elbow.

“Jun, let him go” he said. Only then Jun realized Masa hadn’t said a word until then. Jun turned his eyes to the pilot. Masa was looking at him almost as begging as Kazuna was.

“It’s dangerous for him to go out the ship” Jun repeated.

“Jun, they took Ohno, Sho and Nino while they were on the ship, remember? There’s nothing such as a safe place when your enemy has that kind of power”, Masa slightly smiled at Jun. “Let him try to help. He is as worried for Sho and Ohno as we are for Nino”.

The captain looked at Kazuna with new eyes, only then realizing he had been unfair with him. Of course he must have been worried to death since the beginning of all that madness, but Jun had stubbornly kept blaming him for locking himself up in the bridge while the other were taken away. Blaming him for doing what was logical to do in such a situation. He had assumed Kazuna had acted out of coldness and mere procedure, but now, looking at the desperation in his eyes, Jun understood it hadn’t been like that at all. Kazuna’s intentions were totry to protect the whole ship’s crew. It wasn’t his fault that in the meantime Yonie and his men had kidnapped half of it. 

“All right” Jun muttered. “Stay close to me”. And without adding anything else, he headed to the main hatch to get out of the ship. 

“Don’t worry!” He heard Masa’s voice yell happily from behind his back. “I’ll take care of Arashi until you’re back. Try not to make Sami mad, I wouldn’t want to dodge his shoots, again”. 

Jun briefly turned back at him before he and Kazuna left the ship. Masa was smiling and waving lively at them. 

Jun couldn’t help but to smile back at him.


	39. Chapter 39

39

 

“So, here I am, Sami. As promised”.

“And I see you’ve brought the non-Nino… Nino” Sami smiled naughtily.

“My name is Kazuna. A pleasure to meet you”. 

Sami jumped off his throne and run to Kazuna to pinch his cheeks, then turned to Jun.

“He’s so much cuter than the other Nino! Let’s keep this one instead” Sami said in a good mood.

“Cut the crap already!” Jun yelled. He wasn’t in the mood for jokes. He wasn’t in the mood for Sami, in fact. “What can you tell me?”

Sami sticked out his tongue at him and feigned indignation. 

“Okay, my rushy beauty spot. Straight to the point, as always. Put your two pretty bums to rest, _ne_?” Sami winked at Jun and went back to sit on his golden throne as Jun and Kazuna sat in front of him. 

“It’s going to be trickier than I thought to save my troublesome big brother, his pretty butt man, and the brat prince Nino. As it seems, Yonie and his fellows have a secret base on a planet called Norz. A planet that is considered by the Federation to be uninhabited, by the way” Sami made one of his affected gestures with his right hand, as if he was trying to drive away those pieces of falsified information. 

“A secret base? But, how can you possibly know that?” Kazuna asked in amazement.

“Oh, dear, you’re just too cute” Sami smiled at him. “Because a little bird told me, of course”.

Kazuna tilted his head not getting what Sami meant by that.

“A bird?”

“Arg! Forget about the bird! We don’t have time for this” Jun cut out both of them, urging Sami to go on with what he had found out on his crew whereabouts.

“Okay, mister grumpy. No need to get all upset, Jonie. Geez!” Sami leaned back on his throne and forgot about Kazuna. At least for the moment. “Yonie has a laboratory there, a secret one of course. He has taken the clones, or well” Sami laughed with sarcasm, “who he _thinks_ the two clones are, to his laboratory, presumably to continue their investigation on them. Who knows what inhuman experiments could be thinking of! But that’s not all. As the sole survivors of the whole Jenova destruction, those two clones are equally dangerous, and of great worth. They’re dangerous because they know what truly happened on A-3X-4. And they’re of great worth because they are the last clones left in this whole corner of the galaxy. Their value has risen exponentially with the extermination of their kind. Which makes Nino’s position a highly dangerous one if his true nature was to be revealed. Because now, he is the dispensable one”.

Jun stood up in haste. 

“No rushing until I’m finished, young man” Sami warned him in an attempt to stop him just with his words. Jun looked really agitated, but sat down again.

“What about Ohno?” Kazuna asked taking advantage of the moment.

“My brother…” Sami didn’t seem to feel inclined to joke anymore. “They’ve put him into Yonie’s private jail. Yonie plans on taking him to the Federation Court. Yonie wants to use him as a smokescreen for his experiments on Jenova and everything that lead to its destruction, while he gets rid of him once and for all. Yonie doesn’t like to leave loose ends to his evil plans, you know. And that’s exactly why he hasn’t handed him to the Federation yet. He plans on defaming him first, so my brother’s testimony doesn’t sound reliable even if he tried to uncover all the truth about Yonie on the trial…” Sami’s voice gradually became a whisper.

“Trial?” Jun stood up and walked the room up and down. “Yonie is sticking to his original plan, after all. He’s going to have Ohno judged for the crimes of a nonexistent war instigator and for the massacre of the clones” Jun stood still in front of Sami, wishing for him to say he was wrong. 

But he didn’t. Sami nodded.

“They’re making it all public tomorrow first thing in the morning. Governmental Planet Hour”. 

“But we’ve got to do something!” Kazuna jumped on his seat. “If they take him to Court, they’ll sentence him to death, right?”

Sami and Jun remained silent.

“You’ve got to have thought of a plan, right? He is your brother!”

“And what do you suggest?! We can’t just go to Norz and take them out of there just like that! Four people against a whole army of twisted bastards? Imposible!”

It hadn’t slipped Jun’s ear the fact that Sami had just counted himself in. Four of them, he had said. 

“Then we need reinforcements” Kazuna said all of a sudden.

“As if it was so simple!” Yelled Jun and Sami at the same time, coincidence that made both of them equally uncomfortable. 

“I’ve been thinking about the possibilities we had since the three of them were kidnapped. I wasn’t sure about the better path to take but, after listening to Mister Sami’s information, I think we have only one way left. One chance”, Kazuna made a pause. “I have a plan”. 

Jun and Sami looked at each other taken by surprise.

“Did you hear that, beauty spot?” Sami said in a proud voice. “He called me _Mister_ Sami”, Sami rose his eyebrows as if pointing out something that had been evident from the very beginning of Times. “You should learn from him”.

“Oh! Shut up!”

Kazuna smiled as Captain Jun and _Mister_ Sami took a seat in front of him, ready to listen to his plan.


	40. Chapter 40

40

 

Sho was a broken man. No, not even that. Sho was the shadow of a broken man. He was crouching down in the darkest corner of the new cell they had been taken to, on Yonie’s secret planet base. Nino looked at him feeling his sadness on his own skin. Nino remembered Ohno’s eyes when he had been separated from Sho before, and forcefully taken away from the glass cells prison of the ship. And then, inevitably, Nino thought about the last time he had spoken to Ohno the two of them alone, right before being caught by Sho on one of the Arashi’s corridors. It seemed like an eternity had passed. On that moment, he had decided he would go for Ohno, no matter what. He didn’t care about Sho or their mutual feelings for each other. Now he saw things under a different light. It wasn’t as if he didn’t like Ohno anymore, but he felt bad just for thinking on taking him away from Sho. Because Nino didn’t love Ohno. Sho did. In fact, Sho loved him to the extent of falling into the deepest desperation for having lost him.

Nino got closer to Sho and kneeled beside him. He was crying, trying his best to not make a sound when doing so, but completely failing at it. Nino put a hand over his shoulders and Sho turned his face slightly towards him, taken by surprise. Nino felt Sho’s whole body violently shivering. That man was on his limit.

“Sho, …” Nino really wanted to say something that would swipe Sho’s tears away and give him some hope at the same time… but he couldn’t think of a single thing to say. Nino bit his lip and concentrated on finding those elusive words deep inside of him. The words that Sho would be needing to hear. The words that would inspire courage in both of them. But nothing came to mind. Wasn’t there anything he could say to comfort him? A louder moaning coming from Sho brought him back to the reality of the dirty cell. Then, without previous notice, Sho flew to Nino’s arms, sinking his face on his chest, grabbing his arms in desperation, shaking his head as if denying the truth of everything that had happened since they were on the Arashi, and cried like a child. Innocently. Purely. 

At first, Nino didn’t know what to do. Finally, he decided to let Sho cry all he wanted. He may have not been able to find the perfect words to say, but he could at least do that. He surrounded Sho’s trembling body and patted him on the shoulders. Gradually, Sho stopped grabbing Nino’s arms and relaxed on his lap, surrounding him loosely while abandoning himself to sorrow. Nino caressed his hair and kept patting him softly while Sho leaned his head on his knees.

More than an hour later, Nino still hadn’t found anything appropriate to say to him in that situation. That frustrated Nino, because he usually was the one who always knew what to say in any situation. Any situation but that one, as it seemed. And no wonder. The person Sho loved had been taken away from him to be condemned for a crime he hadn’t committed. And, if that wasn’t bad enough, he was going to be used for God-knows-what kind of barbarian experiments. 

Nino sighed. He didn’t want to think about his own luck. There was no point in doing so. He knew perfectly well that the moment they found out he wasn’t a clone, they would quickly get rid of him.

“It’s okay” Nino suddenly found himself whispering, “everything is going to be okay, big guy. We’ll get out of here and you’ll save Ohno while I kick that bastard Yonie for a walk out there, into Space”.

Sho was still trembling, but it seemed to Nino that the violence of it had decreased. 

“There’s no way out… There’s…” Sho muttered. It was hard to understand him, talking in such a low and broken voice.

“You’re quite the pessimist, right? It’s okay. One way or another we’ll find the way out of here”. Of course, Nino himself didn’t believe a word he was saying, but somehow, putting all those pointless hopes into words gave him the false feeling of them being able to actually become true. Even if they were nothing but an illusion. 

Or maybe…

Maybe believing that they still had a chance to survive that situation and fix things, even when trapped in a dirty prison, was what hope was actually about. 

“I said everything is going to be okay” Nino repeated looking straight at Sho’s eyes. “And that’s final”. He sketched a tiny smile.

A few seconds after that, the prison door opened and a tall man he had never seen before entered the room. He was wearing a lab coat and a pair of old golden glasses.

“Are these the only two specimens left from A-3X-4?” He asked in a cold voice to the prison guard, not bothering in wasting his time with greetings.

“Yes, sir”.

“Don’t call me that” the scientific replied bitterly. “I want to see them”.

“Of course, s… doctor”.

The door to the cell opened and the doctor stayed under the threshold for what seemed to Nino like an endless time. Studying them both with a critical look in his eyes. Then, he pointed at Sho with a long bony finger.

“I want that one”. The scientist turned his back on them and gave all his attention to the prison guard. “The big one. Do you understand?” He made a pause to make sure the guard had understood him well enough. The scientist treated him as if he was a little boy, or a very dumb specimen of the human race. “Good. I want him on my laboratory in ten minutes. Ten-minutes”. 

And without adding anything else, the man left the prison not feeling the need for goodbyes to any of the specimens inside. 

After the cold scientist was gone, Nino lowered his eyes looking for Sho’s reaction to his words. 

Sho hadn’t stopped crying, but now there was also fear in his eyes. 


	41. Chapter 41

41

 

“Whenever you want, honey” Sami said impatiently, reclined on his throne with Jun by his side looking equally in expectation at Kazuna.

“Oh! Yes, yes. Sorry” he replied with a glimpse of surprise in his eyes. He’d been quite silent for the last two minutes or so, lost in his own thoughts, walking up and down the room. “So, that Yonie guy thinks he has me in his power, right? Well, I think that can actually play in our favor. We could use that to solve all this mess, in fact”.

“How? The moment he finds out his captive clone is not a clone but Nino, he’ll kill him”.

“Not if we are faster than him” Kazuna seemed so excited that his hands kept moving around in circles as if trying to explain himself by them.

“Jonie, dear, let the cutie explain himself” Sami cut out Jun even before he could be able to interrupt Kazuna again.

“Thank you mister Sami”, Sami smiled satisfied at that. Then Kazuna continued with what he had thought of. “Okay, so we’re lucky I’m here instead of Nino, because I’m the living proof we need to make my plan work. Wait!” Jun was about to interrupt him yet again but Kazuna rushed to keep talking before he had the slightest chance to do so. “What I mean by that is that we can use _me_ to solve all this. I’m one of the three only witnesses left who actually saw what truly happened the day of the attack on A-3X-4, as well as one of the only two clones still alive of the whole planet. It would be dangerous for me to move around as myself, let’s say, to get to the headquarters of the Federation, but, if they believe that I’m not the clone but Nino the human… Yonie won’t try to stop me nor try to prevent me from meeting with one of the Federation non corrupted dignitaries. As he would think that to be useless and that I-the-human-Nino wouldn’t be paid any attention or given any credibility at all if I were to tell the whole truth about what happened on Jenova System. Because Yonie thinks he has well tied all the loose ends of what he and his faction had done on my planet, and to its whole solar system. Because he thinks he has all the proofs. He thinks he has _me_ ”.

Sami smiled widely beginning to understand what that cute version of Nino was suggesting.

“So, your plan is to inform the leaders of the Federation about the true face that hides behind the good samaritan mask that Yonie wears, exposing his treason to the Federation, to end with his group and all the illegal experiments they’re up to”. Sami’s eyes shone with interest.

“I want to expose everything. His treason for creating a subversive subgroup inside the Federation, operating at ease under their name, experimenting, killing, and lying about it all afterwards, blaming an innocent for their crimes. No one should be allowed to destroy a whole inhabited planet and remain unpunished. I want the Federation to know what Yonie has done on A-3X-4 and the lies he used to get the approval for committing such an unforgivable massacre”.

Jun suddenly stood up and got close to Kazuna.

“And how exactly are you going to get a meeting with one of the leaders? And even if you could manage that deed, what I doubt, but even if you could, why will they believe your words instead of Yonie’s? Because, when he finds out, he’ll try to defend himself, you know, with the best lawyers the galaxy can provide backing him up”.

“I told you”, Kazuna smiled. “I’m one of the only two clones left alive from that planet. They only need a tiny blood sample from me to know it’s true. Captain, they will believe me, I promise. And as for Yonie, we won’t give him enough time to defend himself, because we have to fix this tonight. They’re announcing they have Ohno, the war instigator, tomorrow in the morning, remember? We’ve got to be faster, cleverer, and strike like a lightning storm out of nowhere. Don’t worry, I know more secrets than I’ve let you known I know. I will convince whoever leader I meet. And I’ll condemn Yonie and his men. Even if that’s the last thing I do”.

Kazuna was decided to not let Sho and Ohno behind. He was going to save them. At any price. And if Jun was as decided to save Nino as he was to save his mates, then, they would succeed. He was sure of it.

“But how are we going to find someone we can trust in the Federation in so little time?” Jun wasn’t very sure of the probabilities of success to such a risky plan.

Sami cleared his throat dramatically and stood up from his throne, taking a hand to his chest and bowing theatrically. 

“Leave that to me, love” he said in an affected voice. “I’ll get you the name you need, and the way to get to that person safely”.

Jun stared at Sami in suspicion.

“And why would you do that for free?”

“That bastard Yonie has my brother. Only I torture my brother. And besides, I think that this cutie’s plan may actually work. I’d say we have an ace up our sleeve with this pretty clone by our side. Let me do some calls” Sami gave them a side smile and left the room in a very good mood, almost dancing his way out. 

Jun waited until he was gone, then turned to Kazuna.

“Are you sure about this? After we meet the leaders… They may want to keep you to experiment with you as well. We don’t know if there’re more corrupted factions inside the Federation, like Yonie’s… It’s dangerous”.

“Captain, that son of a bitch has Sho, Ohno and Nino captive. I just can’t stay arms crossed knowing that he can do whatever he wants to them anytime. Nino could be about to be discovered right now. Ohno could be being forced to confess by torture or on his way to Court. Sho could be suffering a horrible pain right now, being experimented on at this very moment. We have to do something. Tonight, now. If my plan works, I don’t care what happens to me. I’ve lost enough in the last two days, Captain, and I promise you that, whatever it may take me, by no means I am losing it all. They are all I have left. Arashi is the only place I have now”.

For the first time since he had met Kazuna, Jun truly saw him. As the irreplaceable and unique human being he was. Not as Nino’s clone, but as Kazuna. 

Only as Kazuna.

Jun nodded firmly looking into Kazuna’s eyes.

“All right, then. Let’s do this!”


	42. Chapter 42

42

 

“Stop it”.

“Do you think it’s really going to work?”

“Are you asking _me_ if your plan is going to work? Really?” Jun turned to Kazuna in disbelief. The clone was so nervous that he was sitting up right, as tense as it was physically possible to be, moving his knee non-stop nervously. 

“What if Sami’s contact is one of them? One of Yonie’s…”

“We only have a few hours before the doctor is taken to Court, so Sami and your plan is the best we have right now. So, for fuck’s sake, relax and stop it with the fucking knee already!” Jun was getting really irritated. Kazuna’s nervous knee was driving he nuts. 

Not that he wasn’t nervous himself, sitting there in that fancy waiting room of one of the highest in rank into the Federation headquarters and so. But at least he wasn’t provoking an earthquake with his feet. 

“Stop it!” Jun put a hand on Kazuna’s knee to make him stop. The clone was trembling. “It’s going to be all right. It’s a good plan. Relax”.

Kazuna looked at Jun. That wasn’t the face of someone who was relaxed, Kazuna thought. 

Suddenly, the tall reinforced door in front of them opened and a snooty secretary came half running straight to them.

“The Deputy Director Yū will see you now” said the greenish secretary with a strong outborder accent, while staring at Jun’s hand on Kazuna’s knee just a second before turning his back on the two men. He stopped by the reinforced door and waited for them to enter the Deputy Director’s office. 

Jun and Kazuna looked at each other and stood up in unison, trying to look twice as self-confidently as they really felt. Kazuna waved at the stiff secretary as they left him behind. He just rose an eyebrow and closed the heavy door behind them. 

The Intergalactic Intelligence Agency’s Deputy Director’s office was, to say the least, quite impressive. For a start, it had no walls beside the one where the reinforced door was. It was almost as if it had been built to resemble a gigantic fish tank opened to the endless darkness of the Space. The ceiling was so tall it was hard to see it, lost between the shadows that were up there. The illumination of the office came solely from some blue light standing lamps which contributed outstandingly to the fish tank first impression. And right in the middle of the office, standing straight and in complete silence, was the Deputy Director Yū in person. She looked like a young human woman, but it was well known that she hadn’t aged visibly for at least half a century, so her age was actually one of the mysteries of the galaxy. Jun bowed in front of her and made Kazuna do the same by pushing his head from behind. The Deputy Director was quite imposing. Sharp cold eyes and the face of a nō mask. Jun swallowed. Maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea to met her in person. 

Without previous notice, the Deputy Director Yū stepped forward and grabbed Jun’s face, moving it from one side to another.

“So this is the clone who survived Jenova System?” She asked in a ferrous tone.

“Actually, I’m the clone. Sir. Madam. Director” Kazuna’s voice trembled.

“Deputy Director” she corrected him without a trace of emotion in her voice. Yū let go of Jun’s face without paying any more attention to him, and turned to Kazuna, grabbing now his face and moving it around. She got so close to him that Kazuna could even hear her breathing. Then, out of a sudden, she let go of Kazuna and stepped back enough to sit behind his enormous plain and empty desk. 

“You’re wasting my time. I only see two common humans in front of me”.

“That’s because we’re humans. He is a human. Only… cloned” Jun started to talk very fast, trying to anticipate before the Deputy Director threw them out of her office, but Kazuna was faster than him. In less than a second he had planted himself right in front of the Deputy Director Yū, less than half a meter away from her face, extending his naked left arm in front of her eyes.

“You’ll just need a drop of my blood to confirm” was all he said. 

In spite of her intentions of not showing them the slightest sign of surprise on her nō face, Deputy Director Yū’s expression changed in an instant. She hadn’t seen Kazuna getting close to her, in fact, she hadn’t seen him moving at all. She jumped on her seat less than a centimeter but enough to let them know they now had all her attention. 

“How…?”

“Oh… I’m sorry to have startled you, Deputy Director Yū” rushed to apologize Kazuna. “We clones are made faster and stealthier than biological humans. I sometimes forget…” 

Jun tried not to chuckle at Kazuna’s words, who was obviously trying to play it cool in front of the big fish there. Jun put a hand on his lips to hide his smile.

“So… is it true? But it can’t be…” Yū stood up and gazed at Kazuna now with much more interest. “If all that was to be true…”

Less than an hour before that moment in which Deputy Director was inspecting Kazuna, Kazuna and Jun had been waiting in Sami’s throne room thinking that he would arrange a meeting with some low position staff at the Federation at most. Then Sami went back and dropped the bomb on them, telling them that the Deputy Director herself would meet them in thirty minutes at her office. First, Jun laughed, then, when he realized Sami wasn’t joking, he started to understand the extent of that bastard’s power. According to Sami, he had had to tell everything in advance to the Deputy Director so she knew the whole matter was worthy of her precious time. As she had accepted to meet Kazuna and Jun, Jun presumed she had believed Sami. But now, looking at how she was inspecting every centimeter of Kazuna’s head, Jun thought that maybe she didn’t trust Sami as much as Sami thought she did. Anyway, one way or another, now that she had finally met Kazuna, she seemed to look inclined to think the whole information Sami had given her was actually true. In which case, they not only had a traitor inside the Federation, but a very serious problem going on under the Federation smooth image of unity and rainbows.

She let go of Kazuna stepping back to look at him with a little more of perspective.

“Deputy Director Yū” Jun called her attention. “He is fascinating and all that, I’m sure, but I believe Sami has brought you up-to-date about the truth behind the attacks on A-3X-4 and the reason for the destruction of the whole Jenova System afterwards. All perpetrated by our common acquittance Yonie and his illegal faction inside the Federation. Not to mention the words massacre, illegal experiments and high treason”. There was no time to be cautious anymore. Nino could be dead already, Sho something worse than that, and Ohno could be being taken to the Federation Court jail at that very moment. 

The time to play was over. Now it was time for action. 

The Deputy Director Yū regained her stoic face expression while looking sharply at him. 

“Yes. I’ve heard those rumors. Those are very serious accusations against an influential member of the Federation”. Her tone was neutral. There was no way of knowing what she could be really thinking. 

“All the more reason to stop him. He is a traitor and a homicidal bastard. And he’s about to finish what he started on Jenova while laughing under the very Federation’s _intelligent_ nose. Listen, three of my crew are in danger right now, I have no time for playing. If you don’t believe us, why did you accepted to this meeting?”

Deputy Director Yū rose both her eyebrows and looked at Jun in what could be considered amusement. 

“Who said I didn’t believe you?”

 

 


	43. Chapter 43

43

 

A prison guard entered Nino’s cell. He planted himself under the door threshold with a grin on his face. Nino lifted his head and looked at the man in terror.

“It’s your time, clone”.

Nino felt the weight of a thousand words fall over his shoulder. That was it. In a few moments they would see he wasn’t a clone, and then… Then he would be dead. 

 

Three levels under the prison from where Nino was being taking from, Sho was now regaining consciousness again. After the last test of his resistance to pain he had collapsed surrounded by the sound of his own screams. Sho tried to open his eyes, but the laboratory was so bright he barely could see anything beside the golden shine of a metallic glasses.

“It is awake, doctor” he heard a voice he didn’t recognized say.

“Look at its vitals! Interesting, interesting indeed. Take it to the tank. If the reports from A-3X-4 are true, we can aim for at least a survival rate of 86.7% in submersions of twenty-two minutes long” the scientific turned the page of a thick report. “Hmm, I think we can do better than that… Right, clone?”

A tear rolled down from Sho’s left eye to the stretcher he was tied to. His muscles still hurt like hell where he had been electrocuted before. 

 

Meanwhile, on the upper levels of the secret laboratory complex, a guard was rubbing his right fist with his left hand.

“I don’t think it’s such a good idea to beat up someone who’s going to appear at the Higher Federation Court tomorrow morning” a hefty woman leaning against the cell wall said absentmindedly to his coworker. 

“We’ll say he resisted the authority, you know” the big guy smiled. “He’s a war instigator after all. A dangerous bastard and so” he laughed while punching Ohno in the face again. “Who cares if he has a bruise or two on his pretty face? He’ll be dead by tomorrow night”. 

 

Back in the Deputy Director’s office, Jun was getting impatient. 

“So you’re one of them too! You accepted to see us only because you wanted to silence us! You didn’t plan to help us from the beginning!” Jun was on the alert, all his muscles tense, his eyes wide open. 

The Deputy Director laughed out loud to his childish reaction to her words. 

“You are funny! Not very bright, but funny. Sami was right” she said in that neutral voice she used so no-one could read through the true meaning behind whatever she said. 

“It’s okay, Jun. She’s not with Yonie” Kazuna got close to Jun and put a hand on his shoulder to try to calm him down.

“But she said she knows that everything is true, but look at her! She’s not doing anything about it! So she’s got to be with Yonie, it’s the only explanation”.

“That was not what I meant. I meant I believe you and your story. Now that I’ve seen that it is true that the clone is not on Yonie’s hands, we can start to _do something about it_ , as you call it”. The Deputy Director Yū sat down behind his desk again and stared at the two men inviting them to do the same. 

Kazuna was the first to sit down in front of her, pulling Jun along. 

“We don’t have time for this…” Jun began to say.

“Ohno Satoshi’s trial won’t be until tomorrow morning” she cut him out. 

“But Nino and Sho… they’re in danger!”

“Don’t rush into conclusions, Captain Matsumoto. Shut up and listen”. 

Jun shut up at once. No-one had ever called him that. 

“After talking to Sami I made some verifications within the Federation internal database to confirm his story. We’ve been suspecting Yonie for a while now, in fact, but he is too meticulous to leave trace of his deeds. We were in need of a proof, good enough to let us be able to catch him. We needed him to make a mistake”, Jun and Kazuna were sure that they were seeing a mirage, because from his position in front of the Deputy Director Yū, they would have sweared that she was actually smiling, her eyes fixed on Kazuna. “And now, at last, we have the living proof we needed”. 

“So you’re going for Yonie” Jun said trying to mask a direct question to her.

“Don’t worry, Captain Matsumoto. We’re taking action tonight”.

Jun tried to smile, but he was too afraid of that woman to even try to do so in her presence. Even so… The plan had worked. 

Kazuna’s fucking plan had worked!


	44. Chapter 44

44

 

“It actually looks really good on you, Captain” Masa smiled while glancing at Jun with a tender smile on his face. Jun was wearing now one of the reinforced uniforms from the Federation Special Forces that the lieutenant himself had handled him. It was black, tight and would protect him from almost anything.

“But why can’t I come along?” Kazuna protested facing Deputy Director Yū while ignoring the couple.

“I told you, you’re just too important right now. Your safety is a priority. I understand your willingness to go rescue your friends as well, but you’re all we’ve got to get our hands on Yonie. If I let you go with them and you got caught by Yonie, not only the Federation would lose his only trump card against Yonie and his faction, but also your friends would be in danger, Satoshi Ohno would get definitely judged and executed, the clone Sho would be experimented on, and Kazunari Ninomiya would be killed at once. We can’t risk the possibility of you falling into Yonie’s hands. You’ve got to stay here, safe and hidden, until we seize Yonie and finish his faction”. Deputy Director Yū’s words were not only ferrous but also fierce. She really seemed to have been after Yonie for a long time, and now that she had the chance to catch him, she wasn’t taking any risks.

“I want to help!” Kazuna yelled in frustration.

“Kazuna” Jun posed a hand over Kazuna’s shoulder. “I want you to stay with Masa and keep an eye on the Arashi. It’s an order. As your captain”. 

“Captain Jun, don’t ask me to do that, please… You know I can be a lot more of help in Norz than here, and… Half of what happened may have been my fault…”

“I’m not asking” Jun tightened his lips and held Kazuna’s glare with decision. 

Kazuna sighed and nodded resigned to the situation. 

“Yes, captain”. 

Jun stepped away nodding back at him with a smile of recognition on his face. 

“See you later”.

Jun turned his back on him and faced now Masa. The pilot, who had had to dock the Arashi to the Intergalactic Intelligence Agency’s haven and present himself to the Deputy Director, was now looking at Jun with eyes filled with worry. 

“Jun…” Masa wanted to ask him to stay with him, to not risk his life, to leave all that incursion thing into Norz’s Yonie’s secret base to the Special Forces of the Federation… but he just couldn’t do it. He new Jun well enough to know that he would be by no means staying arms crossed waiting in that office while someone else was doing what he considered to be part of his job: taking care of his crew. Masa took a deep breath and caressed Jun’s face briefly. Jun was looking back at him, begging him with his eyes to not ask him to stay, to not make him choose between his heart and his convictions. 

“Jun…” Masa tried again, this time giving Jun a tender smile and using all his strengths to not shed a tear. 

“Yes?” Jun breathed.

“…be safe and come back, please. That’s all I ask you”. 

Jun squeezed Masa’s hand by his side. He was wearing thick gloves, part of theSpecial Forces uniform they had lent him, and so, he couldn’t feel Masa’s hand. Jun stepped forward and leant his forehead against Masa’s. 

“I’ll be back in no time” Jun whispered. 

“Be back alive”.

“Okay!!” The Special Forces leader yelled out of a sudden. “Ready?”

A thunderous “Yes!” flooded the room, surrounding the only three men who didn’t belong to the Forces or the Agency. 

“I have to go” Jun’s voice broke.

“Save them, bring them, and kick that bastard’s butt in my behalf!” Masa said trying to make himself heard over the noise of heavy boots. 

“Kazuna! Take care of my man” Jun looked at the clone.

Kazuna nodded and pulled Masa away from all those men wearing that armor-like clothing. They were all dressed in black, protected by nano-intelligence clothing which would save them from almos anything Yonie could throw at them. The Special Forces unit designated to that delicate matter were made up of just a small group of fifteen people, including Jun. More people would draw too much attention, less would be suicidal. The plan was to infiltrate Yonie’s secret base stealthily and detain Yonie by surprise before he had the time to realize what was going on and flee. The Special Forces’ mission was to smooth the way for the Federation Forces of Order to act upon Yonie by preventing him from running away, basically. On the other hand, Jun’s mission was to find Sho and Nino as soon as possible and free them. Four soldiers would stick to him to help him with this matter. The rest would go for Yonie and Ohno. 

Jun waited in line behind a particularly thin and tall blue soldier. He knew that Masa surely would have his eyes fixed on him until he left the room in one of the Special Forces small ships. So he tried to look relaxed. He tried to look strong. And above all, he tried to control his shaking knees and nausea so the fear didn’t show up to his face. 

He had to be strong. 

For Masa. For Kazuna. For Nino. For Sho. For Ohno.

For Arashi.


	45. Chapter 45

45

 

The Special Forces’ ship was silent, narrow and full of weapons. Just the practical way of transportation for troops you could expect. And inside of it, everyone who was going to infiltrate into Yonie’s secret base was gathered on the main deck, all sat in a circle listening to the lieutenant speech while checking every single point of the plan with each one of the three groups. Jun listened carefully to him when the lieutenant started reviewing the role that his group was assigned to once they had landed on Norz. Jun and his group, made up of a total of five people, would be left on the south wall of the secret base, so they could infiltrate directly to the laboratory section quickly and efficiently. According to the plan, they would sneak into the base using the ventilation conduits that faced south. They would have to crawl through several hundred meters, making their way through a maze of narrow conduits. They couldn’t mess up a single time, nor make any noise, added to the fact that they would have to save the distance as fast as a cat would,but in half the time. Jun thought it was impossible to do as the lieutenant said, but if that was the plan, then he would try his best to abide by it.

Once the lieutenant had finished with his group and was now reviewing group A’s plan of action, Jun turned to the blue soldier by his side, member of his group.

“How come you have the plans of a secret base you’ve just known about less than an hour before?”.

The blue soldier looked at him with cold eyes and turned his back on him, not bothering to answer Jun’s question. The woman by his left answered instead.

“Who do you think you’re talking to? We are the Special Forces of the Intelligence Agency of the Federation, doesn’t that give you any hint? It’ll be better to not underestimate us, smuggler.” 

“Hey! I’m not a smuggler! It’s just that…” Jun didn’t know what to say once confronted to the woman’s proud and fierce eyes. 

“We know how to do our work”, a deep voice said from behind Jun’s back. He turned around to see the lieutenant staring right at him with sharp eyes. “Get ready”, he continued, not giving Jun enough time to reply, “we’ll be reaching Group C’s drop location in two”. 

By ‘two’ Jun presumed he meant minutes. Suddenly he felt his hands covered in cold sweat and his legs shaking. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a second. ‘Fast as a cat. Fast as a cat. Fast as a cat’ Jun kept repeating to himself. ‘I can do it’. 

“NOW!” The lieutenant yelled, bringing him back to reality. 

Jun’s group jumped out of the ship at once, landing on a mound of snow. 

Once on the ground, his temporary companions didn’t lose a second and started moving towards the ‘infiltration point’, as they called it. Jun followed as fast as he could. He soon realized that the ship had dropped them just a few meters away from the ventilation conduit’s entrance. The blue soldier opened it in no time, and before he could realize it, they were already inside. 

Jun held his breath and bit his lips, concentrated on not making any noise. Concentrated on keeping up with the rest of his group. Jun was in a very good shape, but he was no match for the Special Forces soldiers. Soon he began to fall behind the group, and if even for a moment, he thought he had lost them. But before he could begin to worry, shiver and try to remember the way out of the ventilation maze, a metallic sound let him find his way again. Just a few meters forward the ventilation conduit, his temporary companions were opening the grille that lead to the next point on their mission’s list: To save Nino.

From the room under their five sneaky butts, Jun could hear someone speaking. 

“What do you mean by ‘the DNA test has failed again’? Get out the way! I’ll do it!”, the sound of someone hitting the floor. The sound of buttons being violently pressed. 

Then, silence.

“What kind of joke is this?” Said the same voice as before, sounding furious. “This man is not a clone! You bunch of good-for-nothing stupid freaks! Didn’t anyone check his blood before making me waste my time?!”

Silence.

The four soldiers and Jun waited in complete silence, not moving a single muscle. Barely breathing. 

“It’s a normal man, stupids!!” 

The sound of rough and noisy footsteps. The sound of a door opening. 

“This one isn’t of any use”, a cold pause. “Kill him”. 

Jun opened his eyes widely and took an involuntary deep breath. He looked at his companions, waiting for any kind of reaction, but none of them had moved a single centimeter. Jun couldn’t believe it. If they didn’t do anything soon, they would kill Nino down there!

“Doctor”, an indifferent voice said. “How are we…?”

“By lethal injection doctor Shija, of course. I’m not dirtying my hands”.

Jun swallowed.


	46. Chapter 46

46

 

Nino almost stopped breathing when he heard that motherfucker torturer say the words ‘lethal injection’. Really? That bastard didn’t want to ‘dirty his hands’? Well, then, he didn’t want to die without putting up a fight. Nino tried to get rid of his ties, moving his whole body frenetically in every direction he could. 

“Doctor! He’s trying to scape!”

“Hold him tight! Don’t let him escape!” The doctor yelled hurrying up filling a gigantic syringe with the lethal liquid.

“The hell you are!” Nino yelled while kicking doctor Shija as soon as he managed to free one leg. “Ha-ha!! Eat that, sawbones!” 

The doctor whose name Nino didn’t know, rushed to help doctor Shija and gave her the syringe, now ready to be injected on Nino. 

“I’ll hold him. You give him the shot” he said throwing himself on top of Nino. 

Nino gasped and tried to kick the doctor in the face, but he had been just too slow. Nino had missed him. 

The doctor immobilized his legs and arms for a second, breathing heavily. Nino could feel the doctor’s weight on top of hip. He was almost suffocating. 

“Now, doctor Shija!!” he scream while trying to keep Nino under control, which was actually almost an impossible task, as he kept twisting his body, writhing and kicking in every direction. 

The doctor felt Nino’s knee on his stomach. Why was that incompetent of doctor Shija taking so long?

“Doctor Shija, the shot!! Now!!”

The doctor felt a hand pat his shoulder from behind two times. Quitely. Calmly. He couldn’t believe it. How could anyone be so useless? The doctor turned his head ready to yell with all his strengths at that good-for-nothing Shija when, suddenly, his muscles froze. 

“You mean, this shot?” A young man with a tiny mole on his upper lip was pointing the syringe at his throat. 

The doctor didn’t even dare to blink. The syringe was almost piercing his skin. With his eyes wide open, he saw doctor Shija lying on the floor, unconscious. Or dead, who knew? Beside her, there were four people wearing the Special Forces of the Federation uniform. 

‘SHIT’, he thought to himself, as he didn’t want to risk his life by opening his mouth and unintentionally moving to the syringe direction.

The young man took a step forward, and so, the doctor took a step back. They repeated the same dance until the doctor was out of reach of the stretcher where Ninomiya, the non-cloned man, was lying. Fast as the wind, a soldier untied Ninomiya and freed him.

‘Shit, shit, shit, shit’, the voice inside the doctor’s head kept repeating. 

Ninomiya got closer to the young man with the syringe and himself, rubbing his wrists and staring straight into the doctor’s eyes while doing so. 

The doctor shivered. 

“Hi, captain J”. Nino said.

“Hi, Nino. Are you okay?”

“By the skin of my teeth” he replied narrowing his eyes still staring at the doctor. “Captain, do you think you could leave this bastard to me?”

“Hey, we’re not here for personal vendettas” the soldier with blue skin said.

Jun lifted his free hand in his direction while handling Nino the syringe.

“All yours” he said to Nino. 

The blue soldier was about to speak again when, suddenly, Nino smashed the syringe on the floor and pushed the doctor roughly against a metallic cabinet on the wall. Then, before anyone could stop him, he kicked the man in the balls with all the strength he had left. The doctor fell down to the floor while trying hard to breath again. Nino let go of the man’s shirt’s neck and turned his back on him. Then walked the three meters that separated him from the blue soldier and stopped just in front of him. 

“ _Now_ you can have him”. 

The soldier was too surprised to react to Nino’s words. 

Someone else did. 

“Are you feeling strong enough to help?” Said the unfriendly woman to whom Jun had talked on the Special Forces ship before. She was talking to Nino. 

“Where are Sho and Ohno?” Nino asked as an answer.

“Next point on our list is Sho” she replied in the same unfriendly tone as before.

“Then, what the fuck are we doing here? Waiting for a cup of tea?” Nino stared at her, defiant.

“Jay, Dhea, you two take these two scumbags to the ship. Matsumoto, Ninomiya, with me”. Her voice was rough as always, but now, she was smiling sideways.

Then, without adding anything else to the new orders, the new group C, now made of four people, left the laboratory at once. 

‘Sho, we’re coming for you. Please, please, be alive’ Jun begged. 


	47. Chapter 47

47

 

There were guards patrolling after every corner, but the Special Forces’ pair were so efficient that they didn’t even give the guards time to scream before they had knocked them down. Stealthily but fast, group C went the whole length of the main corridor on the scientific section of the base, leaving a trail of knocked out guards kissing the ground behind them. Group C advanced on the main laboratory, where Nino had told them that those sadistic scientists were experimenting on Sho. As they reached the aseptic laboratory door, the two soldiers from the Special Forces stood each one on each side of it, their big weapons ready to shoot at whoever crossed its threshold. Jun stayed beside the Special Forces’ tough woman. Nino crouched down in front of the door instead, peeking at the round and narrow window that was on it. 

“Hey! What are you doing?” Murmured the blue skin soldier to Nino. “Follow the plan. Here, beside me” he pointed at his right side with his chin. Nino ignored him completely and kept peeking through the window, shushing the soldier so he could hear what the scientist on the other side of that door were saying. The blue soldier frowned but remained in silence, paying attention to the voices coming from inside the laboratory. 

“Doctor, it has regained consciousness again”.

“Excellent! Only two minutes after the last heart attack! Amazing indeed!”

Nino recognized the scientist from before. It was the same one with the lab coat and golden glasses that had come to the prison section hours before, the one who had ordered the prison guard to bring Sho to his laboratory. Nino clenched his fists. Sho was lying on a stretcher, tied really tight and all wet. His skin was pale and had now a shade of purplish color, his eyelids swollen and red. 

“All right. Let’s move to the next test” the scientist said right away.

“N… now? But doctor…” the assistant’s voice showed insecurity. “I think we should wait until he recov…”

“I don’t pay you to think. Leave that task to me will you? And don’t call it ‘he’, or I may think of giving your job to someone actually capable of telling the difference between humans and things”.

“Yes, doctor” The assistant obediently replied at once. “It won’t happen again”.

“Yes, yes. Get the specimen ready for the flesh regeneration test. Hand me the surgical saw” the scientist said in a cold as stone tone. 

On the other side of the door, Nino stopped peeking. He had seen and listen to more than enough. Fast as the wind, he took the blue soldier’s big weapon with a quick hard pull and gave a step back from the door. Then, while tightening his jaw and narrowing his eyes in anger, Nino kicked the laboratory door as strongly as he could, breaking its hinges and turning it into an open hole in the wall. Inside the laboratory, a very surprised scientist and his assistant were staring at Nino.

“The hell you’re chopping off my friend, sawbones!!” Nino yelled before pointing the weapon at them.

The two doctors were so startled by the sudden intrusion that they didn’t even have the time to properly begin to feel fear. 

And they would never do. 

Nino wasn’t up to no jokes anymore. Without adding a word, he shot the scientist in the head and his assistant in the chest, not allowing a second thought on his mind. His eyes were filled with anger. He had had enough of kidnappings,prisons, mad scientists and tortured friends. 

“Eat that, motherfuckers” He murmured still glaring at the two dead scientistson the floor when the blue soldier entered the laboratory behind him and recovered his weapon. 

“That wasn’t the plan” the soldier said quite upset.

Nino looked at him, staring at his eyes for just a second before turning his back on him, running then towards the stretcher where Sho was still tied to, suffering. First things first. And the first thing right now was to free Sho. 

“He is a problem” the blue soldier said to the woman soldier as she reached him, standing by his side.

“I like him” she smiled.

“But he’s a problem. We’re not supposed to go shooting everyone”.

The woman took a look at the laboratory and grabbed a jar from a shelf, then she put it on the blue soldier’s hand. The jar had human fingers inside. Small. Like a children’s ones. 

“I’m quite positive they deserved it” she said patting the soldier’s back before heading to help Nino and Jun with Sho.

“All you all right? Can you stand up?” Jun asked Sho in a very worried voice. He had rushed into the laboratory at the same time as Nino had left the blue soldierbehind and had run to Sho. 

“Ca…tain…” Sho barely had enough strengths to be able to say that simple word.

“Sons of bitches!” Nino cursed. “I’ll make them pay for this”.

“I think you just did” Jun said to him, pointing at the two cadavers with a look. 

“Then I’ll revive them and kick their ass again”.

“Ni…no…” Sho searched for Nino’s eyes.

“Don’t talk, you idiot. We have to get you out of here”. 

“Nino, give me something to cover him”, Jun ordered.

Nino squeezed briefly Sho’s hand in an attempt to give him strength, then stepped back from the stretcher.

“With pleasure”. 

Nino got to the dead scientist and took his lab coat off firmly, then brought it to cover Sho. Jun had already untied him and was now helping him to stand up. Sho’s legs were shaky and he had bruises and small wounds all over the body. Nino rushed to dress Sho with the lab coat and helped Jun to carry him. When the three of them passed by the two Special Forces’ soldiers, Nino stared into the blue soldier’s eyes.

“Anything to say?” He asked combatively. “I don’t care if you report this to your superior, by the way. I would do it again if I could”. 

The blue soldier looked now calmed and completely unaffected by Nino’s brusque entrance to the laboratory.

“You’re a mere civil. From now on leave the mission decisions and killings to us. Understood?”

Nino smiled sideways at the soldier. 

“Whatever”.

Jun stamped on Nino’s foot. 

“I mean, yes, mister Special Forces’ soldier”

“We’re here to fix this mess, you know, asshole?” The soldier woman stepped in front of Nino. “A little more of gratitude would be nice”.

“Don’t play the hero. You’re here because it serves the Federation. Not for us. Sorry if I don’t like soldiers, not political interests. But, hey, thank you for the rescue. Very praiseworthy to have found Sho still alive”. Nino softened his tone but not his stare. “Let’s hope it’s not too late for Ohno either”. 

Nino dragged Sho along, and Jun and him took Sho out of the laboratory.

“Hey, Nino” Jun whispered. “Why are you being so harsh?”

Nino didn’t look at his captain. 

“Nino!” Jun hissed impatiently.

Nino kept quiet for a few more seconds before turning his eyes to Jun and looking straight into his. 

“I’ve been hearing Sho scream for hours, Jun. Hours. Why didn’t those great savior soldiers hurry up? No. They aren’t here for us” Nino made a pause in which he bit his lip in anger. “And about those two sawbones from before… Believe me, they deserved it”. 

Nino’s eyes were watery and filled with bitterness.

Jun didn’t ask anymore.

 


	48. Chapter 48

48

 

Three levels over the laboratory on Yonie’s illegal faction’s secret base, Ohno was being taken out of his cell and through a long corridor. They had put a thick fabric bag on his head so he couldn’t see where he was being dragged to, as well as heavy chains between his legs and his hands, which made each step harder and harder to take. Besides, Ohno was slightly limping on his right foot after the prison guard had beat him up before on his cell. Ohno couldn’t see anything but a few dim lights here and there from time to time, blurred by the stubborn tears that struggled to overflow his eyes. But he had promised to himself he would be strong. For Sho. Even if he couldn’t be able to see him again, he would be strong for Sho. Because if he gave up now, it would be the same as undermining Sho’s efforts to save him when planet Lab Alfa was about to be destroyed. At that moment, even if his body had shown no signs of life, Sho had taken him to that unknown ship that went under the name of ‘Arashi’, risking his life only to save his remains. When Sho saved his body, he thought Ohno would never know of him doing so, as he thought Ohno to be dead. But he saved his body either way. And now, even though Ohno knew Sho wasn’t looking at him and that he would never know, he had decided not to cry, not to give up, and to cherish the life Sho had fought for on that now inexistent Lab Alfa planet. Ohno would try to survive. For Sho.

The guards escorting Ohno, saw how the prisoner suddenly rose his head and walked now with pride, trying not to let them notice his limping. As if he wasn’t about to be judged and sentenced to death. Suddenly, he looked stronger. 

The guards had put the fabric bag to cover his head in an attempt to weaken the prisoner’s will, to make him nervous and anxious. To make him feel danger. So he was afraid. So his voice trembled when declaring on the trial. So his eyes looked like those of a mad man when giving his testimony. So his words sounded faltering and untrustworthy. But he looked now more calmed, more into his senses, more imposing. As if he had read into their plan to damage his sanity and had decided to fight back. 

“You’re a tough bastard after all, huh?” The prison guard muttered at him. “What has gotten into you all of a sudden? Walking all upright and proud” he spitted in front of Ohno’s feet. 

Ohno didn’t bothered to answer to the guard.

“Bah! Whatever! Your time is over either way. Act as cool as you like. You’ll be dead in a few hours”.

The guard heard Ohno’s soft laughter coming from under the bag on his head.

“What are you laughing at?!” The guard turned to him as surprised as irritated.

“I can’t die” Ohno whispered coldly.

The guard was about to yell at him again, but before he had the chance to do so, a tall man appeared at the end of the corridor they were going through. The prison guard, also a soldier, took his hand to his forehead in a military salute. 

“Sir!” He said in a loud voice, standing all upright and stiff.

Ohno heard the sound of heavy footsteps heading towards him.

“Stand at ease, soldier. I’ll take care of the prisoner from here. As you were”.

“Yes Sir!” 

Ohno felt the guards on both his sides step away and leave him with the new ‘Sir’ and his companion. Then, he heard someone putting himself behind him and pointing at his back with what he thought that probably was a gun. 

“Move” the man behind him ordered. Ohno lifted his chin and began to walk. The other man, the ‘Sir’, higher in command for what it seemed, led the way. 

They remained silent for a while, then, out of a sudden, the ‘Sir’ sighed and began to talk in a tone full of disdain.

“It’s a shame, don’t you think?” 

Ohno didn’t know if he was talking to him or to the man with the gun behind his back, so he decided not to bother in replying. 

“But I guess we were mistaken in our calculations of how much a clone’s body could actually resist under water. The theory was so promising though…” the military kept talking, obviously looking for a fight, or at least some kind of violent reaction coming from Ohno.

Ohno tightened his jaw while trying to control the rhythm of his breathing. Was that man trying to imply they had killed a clone by drowning him?

“Tell me, doctor Ohno, how much did the clones’ survival rate ascended to in A-3X-4? I mean, when submerged into water. Because that Sho specimen didn’t last much…”

Ohno felt his body trembling, his breathing stoping, his heart beating so violently it hurt. He hadn’t meant Sho was dead. That couldn’t be true. 

“And there I thought we could use him to create more resistant soldiers! What a disappointment!” 

Ohno almost burnt from inside out when he heard that man laughing at what he said had been Sho’s final moments. 

“At least the other clone has lasted longer and we can still make good use of him” the man continued to talk, bragging with cruelty. 

Ohno relaxed instantly and calmed down, smiling behind the fabric that covered his face. Because he knew something that the ‘Sir’ didn’t, apparently. And because now, he also knew that the military man was lying. That man had talked just a little too much. Bragging about what they had been doing to the other clone: Kazuna, who actually wasn’t on that base at all, but safe in the Arashi. Safe and far from these monsters’ hands. Because the man that Ohno had seen on the cell with Sho before wasn’t Kazuna, but Nino. And if they hadn’t noticed that they had kidnapped the wrong person yet, it meant that everything the man was saying was probably a lie. What he had said about Kazuna was a lie, so what he had said about Sho could also be a lie as well. 

It had to be.

Sho was alive. He had to be. No matter what. He had to be.

Ohno closed his eyes for a second and concentrated on the thought of Sho being alive.

The man carrying the gun made Ohno stop abruptly at a certain point. A brighter light filtered through the fabric. The air wasn’t as dense as before neither. Ohno took a deep breath and closed his eyes to regain peace of mind. 

He was going to be judged for a crime he hadn’t committed. He would never see Sho again. Or Kazuna. But he had promised he would be strong. 

He would fight.

“Ah! There you are already! Just about fucking time!!” A voice yelled at the ‘Sir’ by Ohno’s side.

“Sir!” The man barked.

Ohno puffed inside the bag. If everyone there called each other ‘Sir’, it was going to be a damn mess to tell them apart.

“Mister Yonie wants the prisoner on board as soon as possible. We’re taking off right away! Hurry up!” The new ‘Sir’ sounded very nervous and under pressure.

“Yes, Si…”

“Shut up and hurry up!!”

An alarm bell began to ring clear and loud, resounding on all the base. There was something going wrong, very wrong. In no time, shoutings, orders yelled as loudly as possible, heavy and quick footsteps and sharp metallic sounds were all what Ohno could hear around him.

“Hurry! Take the prisoner to Mister Yonie’s private ship!!” Someone yelled.

A strong hand grabbed Ohno by the arm and dragged him out of the base. The air was so cold it bit, and it was so bright he had to half-close his eyes even under the fabric bag on his head. A deafening sound of engines running told Ohno he was being dragged trough some sort of airstrip. The soldier made Ohno run up a metallic staircase and get into a darker space. It wasn’t so cold inside there. The soldier forced Ohno to sit and tied a security belt around his chest and hips. A second before the ship engine bursted into a strong buzzing noise, Ohno heard Yonie’s voice yelling at the pilot. 

“NOW!! TAKE OFF!!”

Ohno closed his eyes and sketched a smile while feeling the ship leaving the ground. Yonie was in trouble. His secret base was a complete chaos. That could only mean that he had been exposed. Ohno leaned back and let a laughter go up his throat. He could be a prisoner trapped in a mad bastard’s ship, but the base was being taken down, which meant that the experiments with clones would now have an end. And Sho would be saved. 

Nothing else mattered anymore. 

Sho. His Sho would be rescued.

Ohno let himself shed just one single tear. 

He would have wanted to see Sho’s smile at least one last time. 

Yonie’s ship left Norz’s orbit and dashed into the stars.

 


	49. Chapter 49

49

 

At mid-flight, a violent shaking destabilized Yonie’s ship, making it rattle. 

“What was that right now?” Yonie yelled. 

“We’re being attacked” the pilot’s voice sounded anxious. 

“Well, do something!!”

“I’m trying!”

Another hit shook the ship again, filling the cabin with the sound of sparks and the smell of smoke. 

“Shoot back or something!” Yonie’s voice trembled.

“I… I can’t do that, Sir! It would be treason!” 

“Give me that, imbecile!” 

The sound of struggle and groaning. 

“I… can’t…”

Yet another violent hit destabilized the ship again. Out of nowhere, a powerful ray of light covered the ship’s bridge, entering by the front glass. Meanwhile, a sharp metal sound followed by a violent shaking immobilized the ship. Ohno tried to get rid of the annoying fabric bag on his head so he could see what was going on, but there was no way of taking that thing out. Suddenly, a piece of the ship’s walls dropped by his right side, startling him, followed by a chaos of heavy footsteps that flooded the cabin. 

Yonie’s ship had been boarded. 

Ohno heard Yonie and the pilot being dragged out of the ship, then he felt someone untying him and bringing him as well to who knew where. Ohno listened and waited for whatever it was to come next, when, once he was out of Yonie’s ship, someone finally took away the annoying fabric bag on his head. 

At first, Ohno couldn’t see anything, as it was too bright for his eyes, used to the dim darkness of the fabric bag. But then, little by little he began to be able to focus the place surrounding him, where he now was standing. 

It was a shiny huge ship deck full of soldiers from the Federation. 

Ohno didn’t even waste a second on them. Because right in front of him, separated by only a few dozens of meters, Sho was looking at him. He was hardly standing up, helped by Nino and Captain Jun that were holding him. To the sight of Sho, Ohno just couldn’t hold his tears anymore. 

Because Sho was alive. Because he was there, right in front of him. Safe and alive.

“Sho…” Ohno breathed, not believing his eyes. He had given up on seeing him ever again. He had only prayed for his safety, convinced that he would never get the chance of seeing him again. 

Ohno pushed away the soldier that was holding him and run towards Sho. 

Ohno couldn’t care less about the soldiers fixing his eyes on him, or about Yonie and his pilot now being chained, nor about his limping leg or his hurting ribs. Sho was there. Ohno run to Sho and threw himself in Sho’s arms, surrounding his neck with both his arms and holding him so tight that Nino and Jun almost fell down along with them. 

“You’re alive! You’re alive! You’re alive!” Ohno kept crying, intertwining his fingers in Sho’s hair while sinking his face in his neck, whispering to his ear, “Sho, Sho, Sho…”

Sho held Ohno back, ignoring his burning chest, his stinging wounds and his weakened body. Because he was holding Ohno in his arms again. Because he could feel his hair tickling his cheeks, his breath warming his neck, his fingers caressing his skin. 

“Satoshi… Oh, Satoshi… I thought I had lost you again”.

“I can’t die” Ohno repeated the words he had said to Yonie’s soldier when he was still on Norz’s secret base. “We’re all supposed to be already deceased, remember?”

Sho wanted to smile, but he ended sinking his lips in Ohno’s hair instead. 

Because they were alive. They were safe. And beyond any other thing, they were together again.


	50. Chapter 50

50

 

The Federation Military ship took them all to the Federation Agency of Intelligence, where Deputy Director Yū and quite a number of other dignitaries were waiting for them. But before meeting the big fishes, they were led to the Deputy Director’s office, where they found a very worried Masaki and Kazuna waiting for them anxiously. As soon as they entered the room, Masaki threw himself in Jun’s arms like a flash of light, kissing Jun in the lips with such urge anybody dared to stare much at them. Kazuna run to welcome Ohno, Sho and Nino with tears on his eyes and a wide smile on his lips. 

“You’ve made it!” Kazuna said holding both Sho and Ohno at once, fighting to cover Nino as well. “I was so worried! I’m sorry, I couldn’t prevent the…” his voice broke. 

“It’s okay, Kazuna. We’re good, we’re fine” Ohno’s soft voice melted the ice wall behind which Kazuna had tried to hide himself since A-3X-4. “We’re all fine, and together”.

“But I…” Kazuna looked at Sho with eyes filled with regret. “Sho… What I said on the Arashi’s bridge the last night we talked… I didn’t mean it. I was just jealous, and angry, and behaving like a complete idiot. I didn’t mean what I said. I don’t believe what I said to you… I…”

“It’s okay, Kazuna. It’s already forgotten”, Sho said while gently squeezing Kazuna’s shoulder as a sign of his forgiving. “Thank you for not giving up on us”. 

“But I did nothing… I wasn’t even in the rescue team…”

“It was you who thought of the plan that saved us, exposing yourself to make it work” Sho looked at Kazuna right into the eyes. “Jun told us”.

“I…”

“Thank you”, Ohno gave him such a tight hug that soon Kazuna had to beg for help. Ohno let go of him, smiling. “Thank you, friend”. 

Kazuna was beginning to turn red when suddenly he felt a strong hit on his back. When he turned around he saw Nino’s eyes staring at his.

“Thanks, mate! But let me tell you, it sucks to be you” He laughed. 

Kazuna smiled shyly at him. 

“Yeah, I guess it’s not so fun being a clone…”

“What are you saying? They believing I was a clone was what kept me alive so long” Nino slapped Kazuna on the back of his head.

“But you were kidnapped!”

“And, for what I know, it’s exactly thanks to that that the Federation has finally been able to catch that bastard Yonie and end his illegal faction and the experiments for good. So, in a way of speaking I’m the fucking hero here”.

“HEY!” They all yelled at him at once. 

“Okay, okay…. Geez, guys, you have no sense of humor at all!”

On that precise moment, a Special Forces soldier entered the office to lead them to another room where the Deputy Director Yū and the other dignitaries where waiting. 

 

The meeting with the big fishes was short and straight to the point. First of all, Deputy Director Yū thanked Jun and Kazuna for their cooperation and valuabe help to the Federation. After that came the official petition to testify against Yonie in the upcoming Trial, then a few pompous words and that was it. The big fishes had no time to waste and they knew how to do their thing fast and smooth, but before they could close the standard procedure for those kind of cases, Jun went out of the line and planted himself in front of all of them before they could leave the room.

“One more thing” he said, leaving the formalities aside. 

“What is it?” Deputy Director said. 

“What about our remaining problem?” 

“Problem?”

Jun rose his eyebrows quite annoyed.

“The fact that all my crew is stated as deceased on the intergalactic database, letting aside that my ship’s doctor is still labeled as a war instigator”.

“Oh, that” said an octopus-like dignitary with a gurgling sound. He, or she, whispered something to his assistant, who took an information panel out of who knows where and touched it quickly for less than thirty seconds. Then, he showed it to the dignitary, who took the panel and showed it to Jun so he could see its screen. 

“Will this be enough?” The octopus asked.

“I would appreciate if you let me made a few extra changes” Jun stared at it. 

The octopus passed him the panel and Jun typed something fast. The octopus made a gurgling sound that sounded like a soft laughter and nodded. 

“Now it’s perfect” Jun said handling the panel back to the dignitary. 

“Then it’s done” it said before leaving the room followed by the rest of the big fishes of the Federation. 

Once they were gone, Masa got close to Jun and asked him.

“What did you write?”

Jun just smiled and turned to his crew.

“Let’s go back to the ‘Arashi’, I’m dying for a shower and some disgusting dehydrated food from our kitchen”. 

And without adding anything else, Jun left the room with a wide smile on his face.

 


	51. Chapter 51

51

 

“Masa, would you please put the intergalactic database on screen for us?” Jun asked Masa once they got to the Arashi’s bridge, where Jun had gathered all his crew. 

“Pír-paprí Captain!” Masa smiled warmly.

A big floating screen appeared in the middle of the air. 

“Done” the pilot announced singing.

“Search for us” Jun asked him.

One by one Masa introduced the crew’s names on the intergalactic database.

 

_> >> Jun Matsumoto, current captain of the spaceship ARASHI model 199909-HWI_

_> >> Kazuna Arashi. Member of crew in ARASHI model 199909-HWI_

_> >> Kazunari Ninomiya, registered mechanic number 19924111. Member of crew in ARASHI model 199909-HWI_

_> >> Masaki Aiba, registered pilot number 008212. Member of crew in ARASHI model 199909-HWI_

_> >> Sho Arashi. Member of crew in ARASHI model 199909-HWI_

_> >> Satoshi Ohno, collegiate doctor number 80113104. Member of crew in ARASHI model 199909-HWI_

 

“We’re alive again!!” Masa cheered, being the first to say something. He stood up and began to give a hug to everyone. When it was time for Kazuna, Sho and Ohno’s turn Masa found them staring at the screen completely speechless. 

“What?” Masa asked turning his head to the screen. “Are you not happy that we are all in the intergalactic database again as non-criminal living people?” 

“Arashi…” was all what Kazuna found himself able of saying. 

“Kazuna… Sho… And my expedient…” Ohno added turning to Jun. 

“You’re clean, and free of going wherever you want to”, the captain smiled.

“Nnn?” Masa looked confused at them.

“Don’t you see, Masa?” Nino put a hand on Masa’s shoulder. “Kazuna and Sho had never been on the database before. Because they were clones in a clone’s world that only created them to terraform planets for humans, remember? Jun has given them a surname and the status of biological humans. And of course, doctor Ohno is free of any stupid charge of war instigating”, Nino was in such a good mood that his voice oozed warmth. “Well done, Captain J!” he cheered now turning to Jun.

“Captain…” Kazuna and Sho looked at Jun with eyes filled with gratitude, at the very verge of crying. 

“You’re finally free”, Jun said. “You can go wherever you want to go. You can do whatever you want to do”, the captain stopped talking suddenly, as if he had remembered something. “Well, you’ll have to testify on Yonie’s trial before, of course, but, after that, you three are completely free to wander about”.

“Thank you, Captain”, Ohno suddenly stepped forward. “Thank you for what you’ve done for them. For me. If you let me, I’ll follow you and your crew wherever you go. I’ll fix you in case you get shot again”, Ohno let himself joke a little. 

“That would be very helpful, yes” Jun laughed.

“There are no words to describe my gratitude for everything that you and your crew have given us: a way of escaping a certain death, friendship, a place to belong to, and now, a human identity”, Sho took Jun’s hand. “I’ll follow you to the end of Space and help you with all I have. I’ll even eat parsley if I have to!”

Jun laughed so hard everyone was infected by it, and soon everyone was laughing as well.

“Let’s hope we won’t have to do so ever again. One time was more than enough”, Jun smiled at Ohno, Sho and Kazuna. “If you want to stay, you’re all very welcome on my ship. I’ll be proud for calling you members of my crew”.

“Run now that you can”, Nino intervened. “He’s just being nice to lure you. Truth is he’ll yell at you twenty four seven, you know…”

Jun pushed Nino away with his shoulder, playfully.

“Oh! Shut up! You’re spoiling a nice moment here, you know”.

“Whatever. I warned them. My job is done”.

 

After the laughter and gratitude exchange, all the members of the Arashi gathered at the kitchen and ate all they could until midnight, Governmental Hour. Gradually, the voices fade and the crew began to leave the kitchen area. Nino went straight to his room. He had had enough of adventures and now he just wanted to lie on his own bed and sleep for hours. Kazuna was already asleep on the kitchen area’s sofa. Masa had dragged Jun out of there as soon as he had seen the chance of doing so, bringing the captain to his own bedroom, locking the door behind them and devoting himself to cover Jun in three kisses for each seconds he had made him worry while on the Federation’s mission on Norz. 

Meanwhile, Sho was being trapped between the wall of his own room and Satoshi’s body. Because now that they were alone, he was Satoshi. His Satoshi. Sho run his fingers down Satoshi’s back and brought him closer to him. He wanted to feel his whole body in touch with his. No. He needed to feel him, and he needed to show him how much he loved him. How much he had yearned for him while apart.

Sho stepped away from the wall, gently pushing Satoshi against the bed, then making him lie on it. He surrounded his nape with one hand while caressing his chest with the other. Kissing his lips with passion as he slowly put himself on top of Satoshi. Pressing Satoshi’s hips with his tights while moving over his lap. Satoshi let him undress him slowly, kissing his way through each piece of clothing he was planning to undress next. Satoshi’s heavy breath made his heart skip a beat every time. As he always did. He made him just want to become one right away. But they had all night. 

And the night after that one. 

And the next one.

And the next.

And so on, for the rest of their lives. 

Because Sho wasn’t letting go of Satoshi ever again.

Sho kissed Satoshi on the lobe while whispering.

“I love you, Satoshi”.

Satoshi bit Sho’s shoulder in return, then giving him a dozen of kisses on his way to his ear.

“And I love you, Sho”, Satoshi took his time to devotedly kiss Sho’s lips with all his love. “My beloved Sho”.

 

 


	52. Chapter 52

52

 

Yonie’s trial had been long and exhausting. But finally, he and his whole faction had been caught, judged, and sentenced. Their crimes were all exposed, their massacre and illegal experiments too. Norz’s laboratory and the rest of the installations there would be destroyed, the prisoners freed, and the truth about what had really happened to A-3X-4 and the Jenova System would be made public. 

Ohno, Kazuna, Sho and Nino had testified at the Trial, and their testimony was so decisive that the Judge saw no other option but to proclame Yonie guilty of all charges. 

After the Trial, the whole Arashi crew talked just one more time with the Deputy Director Yū, hoping they wouldn’t have to see her ever again. 

Everything had ended.

They were finally free. 

Completely and truly free.

 

After everything was over, Jun invited again the doctor and the two newly become humans to stay with them as part of his crew for as long as they wanted to.

Ohno said he would be honored to do so.

Sho said he was as happy as ever to be able to do so.

Kazuna kept silent. As he had done days before, when in the bridge Jun had shown them the intergalactic database in which he, Kazuna, appeared as Kazuna Arashi, labeled as any other human. That time, he didn’t accept Jun’s invitation to join the Arashi either, but no one asked any questions.

This time, his silence didn’t go unnoticed.

“Kazuna, what about you?” Jun asked him straightforwardly, guessing already the answer to his question. 

Kazuna took a deep breath before facing his friends. Because if there was something he was completely sure of in his life right then, that was the sincere friendship of those five men.

“I’m beyond honored that you are giving me, who has nothing to offer, that chance, Captain. I really appreciate it and I would be lying if I said I don’t feel tempted to accept, but…” Kazuna’s voice broke.

“But?” Jun invited him to keep talking and give him his answer.

“But, after all, I still want to try to live out there by my own. I want to prove to myself that I can live just as any other human out there. I want to go somewhere where they don’t know where I came from, and try to live by my own means”, Kazuna made a pause and looked at Jun in the eye. “I still want to stick to my original plan… the one that led me to your ship on the day Lab Alfa was attacked”. Kazuna turned to Sho and Ohno with begging eyes. “Please… I really wish you could understand this decision and… and don’t think badly of me…”

“I knew you would say something stupid like that”, Sho said trying hard to hold his watery eyes. “Of course you have my understanding, you fool. You should know by now that I would back you whatever decision you decide to make. We’re friends. I will never forget that you helped me carry a dead man to a stranger’s ship just because you knew it was the man I loved”.

“Well, he wasn’t dead after all…” Kazuna said turning all red.

“And thanks to you today we are alive. Me and Ohno. If you hadn’t helped me then, I would have stayed by his side, and both of us would have died in the Jenova System destruction. Not to mention that you saved us again when we were kidnapped by Yonie. I owe you twice, Kazuna”. Sho gave a hug to Kazuna. “I’ll always be there for you, Kazuna. Always. Don’t you dare forgetting that”. Sho squeezed him one last time before letting him go.

Ohno hugged Kazuna and thanked him for everything he had done for he and Sho, and for his friendship from the very beginning on A-3X-4, when Ohno was just beginning to understand the true nature of clones talking with Kazuna and Sho in the laboratory’s canteen. 

“Whenever you need me, I’ll be there for you”, Ohno whispered to his ear. “We are friends”. 

Kazuna hugged Ohno back as well and thanked him back. Without that first conversation with the doctor, he would have never had the chance to leave Lab Alfa. Ohno had been the beginning of his willing to prove himself as a human. Even if Kazuna would never admit it out loud.

Nino and Masaki also had their turn to say goodbye to Kazuna. Nino almost cried when remembering all he had learned from that clone. How Kazuna had opened his mind about the true nature of clones.

“I will miss you, Kazuna. Excuse me for not hugging you…”

“I know, for me it’s also freaking weird to hug myself” he laughed. “Thank you for giving me a name”, Kazuna added.

“To tell you the truth, I’m not sure it was a good idea… I had no right to do so…” Nino gave Ohno a quick look, remembering the conversation they had had on the infirmary. Kazuna wasn’t a pet, or his son, so he had no right to name him. 

“Actually, maybe I said too much that time”, Ohno lowered his eyes while blushing. “Maybe I was too harsh on you”.

“It’s okay. You were right” Nino said.

“Hey guys!” Kazuna jumped in. “Never mind that, both of you. I was happy that you were willing to share your name with me, Nino. And I’m happy to hear that you worried for me, Ohno. I’m grateful for both things”.

Then Kazuna turned to Masa, but before he could realize it, Masa was already hugging him. 

“I’m going to miss you soooooooooo much!”. Masaki was crying a river. 

Kazuna smiled widely, touched by Masaki’s emotiveness, and hug him back patting his shoulders.

“I’ll miss you too, Masa. I’ll miss you a lot”.

When Masa let go of Kazuna, Jun got close to him and put a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

“The Arashi will always be waiting for you to come back. The Arashi is now, and will always be, your home. Just remember that, understood?” Jun’s eyes were determined and his look left no room for speculation. He was as serious as he could.

“Thank you, Captain”, Kazuna nodded.

“Meanwhile, I guess that we’ll have to do with that clumsy mechanic Nino”.

“Hey!!” Nino protested punching Jun in the back, making everyone laugh together.

 

After a few deliberations, the Arashi left Kazuna on one of the best planets of that corner of the galaxy. After another long goodbye, in which they repeated to Kazuna that if he ever were to be in need of help, he’d just need one call to have them there in no time. Then, one by one, the crew went back inside the Arashi, leaving only Sho and Kazuna left on the surface of the planet. It was Sho’s last goodbye to his lifelong friend, so they gave them a little privacy.

“I wish you happiness on your new life on the Arashi, Sho. I really do”.

“So do I for you. Show them what you’re worth, Kazuna!”

Kazuna smiled and lifted his chin faking an exaggeratedly proud pose.

“I’m going to thrive awesomely!”

“I bet you will!” Sho laughed warmly. Then he put a worried face and looked seriously at Kazuna. “I bet you will… But, hey… Live, try everything out, succeed, thrive or do whatever you want to do, but… don’t forget to come back”.

“Sho…”

“I’ll be waiting for you” Sho sketched a sad smile. “All of us will”.

“Thank you, Sho”, Kazuna said while nodding.

Sho nodded back and took a deep breath, looking at Kazuna for the last time before going back to the Arashi.

“Good luck”.

Sho went up the Arashi’s ramp and closed the hatch behind him. 

 

A few minutes later, Kazuna saw his friend’s ship leave the surface of the planet.

No. Not his friends. 

 

His family.

 

Kazuna turned around, filling his lungs with the air of that yet-to-explore planet, feeling already his blood yearning for challenges, while up in the sky, the Arashi’s trail was slowly fading away.

 


	53. Epilogue: Several months later…

_Epilogue: Several months later…_

 

Masa was leaning back on his new pilot’s chair, which he had gotten a month before after winning a bet against Sho. They were now back in the Federation ruled part of the galaxy looking for some new jobs. The pilot was singing a new song he had learnt from a cute alien civilization they had met three months ago, when suddenly the distress call alert began to beep like crazy on the main panel. 

Masa sat upright at once and pressed the communication button to read and answer the distress call, but when he read the content of the message he stopped any movement aside from his eyelids opening widely. Then, he rushed to call the Captain to the bridge immediately. 

As soon as Jun entered the cockpit, Masa showed him the message. Jun read it out loud.

“ _Help! I’m trapped! This is Kazuna Arashi, and I need your help_ ”. The message was followed by his coordinates. “Masa, look up those coordinates”, the captain ordered right away.

“I’ve already done that…” Masa sounded somehow uncomfortable. 

“Where do they lead to?”

Masa turned around on his chair to face Jun. 

“You may want to call the doc here…”

“What do we need Ohno for?” Jun frowned.

“The coordinates… They lead to Yatai”.

“Say what?!”

“To good old Sami, as it seems…”

“Oh, come on! For fuck’s sake!” The captain complained taking his right hand to his forehead before turning on the ship’s inner transmitter. “Ohno, get your ass to the bridge right now. Your brother has kidnapped Kazuna”.

 

On the other side of the Arashi, Ohno almost dropped the medicines he was locking up the moment he heard the captain’s words. His brother had done… wait… What??

The doctor rushed to the bridge, where he met the rest of the Arashi. As Jun’s transmission had been heard thorough the ship, Nino and Sho had also come to the cockpit as well to verify the news. After all, not every day their informer kidnapped one of their crew, even if Kazuna hadn’t set a foot on the Arashi in months. 

“Captain!” Ohno said as soon as he entered the bridge. “Is it true?”

“I’m afraid so”, the Captain said showing them Kazuna’s distress call record and the content of his message. 

“I’m so going to kill him” Ohno muttered annoyed. “Masa, are we far from my stupid brother’s asteroid?”

“Nope! We’re veeeeery close, in fact”, Masa answered.

“Captain, permission to get down there and kick my brother’s ass”.

“Permission granted”, Jun turned to Masa. “Take us to Sami’s”

“Pír-paprí Cap!” Masa singed while speeding up the ship.

“You’re not going to stop that pír-paprí thing ever, are you?” Nino sighed.

“Never!” Masa laughed as the ship flew fast as the wind.

 

The Arashi reached Yatai in less than two hours, and twenty minutes later they were already on the surface of the asteroid, making their way through thieves and smugglers. This time Sho had chosen to stay on the ship while Masa had the chance to finally meet Sami face to face for once. Just in case Sami decided to go back to their past shooting-each-other kind of relationship, Nino had decided to stay at the Arashi as well. 

Therefore, only Jun, Ohno and Masa were now standing in front of Sami’s lair’s door. Ohno had to threaten Sami’s doorman to let them in, but after a few minutes they were all standing in Sami’s throne room, which Ohno and Jun noticed had a few more ostentatious extra pieces on its walls. Just as they remembered it, a huge throne presided the room.

“Hey! Annoying little brother! Get out here!” Ohno shouted. 

A door opened on one side of the throne room, but instead of Sami, it was a completely dressed in silk Kazuna who came through it running and stumbling. 

“Kazuna!” They all shouted at once.

Kazuna run to them and clenched to Ohno’s arms.

“He’s completely out of his mind!” He said, panting. 

Then, from the same door Kazuna had used to enter the room, Sami appeared wearing only an indecently short silk kimono. 

“Oh! Come on! Don’t go playing the victim now, after all the signals you have sent me, my sweet honey bunny!” Sami looked more delighted than upset with the chasing of his prey. 

“Wait a moment! What’s going on here?” Jun put himself between Sami and Kazuna.

“It’s all his fault. If he wasn’t so damned cute…” Sami complained theatrically, sitting on his huge throne. 

“Cute? What? I don’t understand… We received a distress call from Kazuna”, Masa took part. “Oh! I’m Masaki, the Arashi’s pilot, by the way. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Sami. I’ve heard tons of stories about you!” 

Sami rose his eyebrows, staring at Jun. 

“Where do you find all these cute guys, Jonie? One day you’ll have to tell me your secret”.

“Shut up, will you?” Jun turned to Kazuna. “Are you all right?”

“Oh!! Just perfect!! Now take sides with the evasive cutie! You just broke my heart, beauty spot!” Sami made a face and twisted his lips feigning disbelief.

Jun ignored Sami the best he could, concentrated only on Kazuna.

“He’s crazy!” Kazuna said pointing at Sami. “I contacted him only because I wanted to buy some information. He agreed, but only if I came to see him in person. So I did. I came here as a guest, and as soon as I did so, he put me in a tacky room full of velvet and flounces everywhere, saying I was now his prisoner and that he wouldn’t let me go!” 

Jun turned to Sami with a dangerously angry look on his eyes.

“Oh! Come on! He’s exaggerating, of course”, Sami said nonchalantly right away, trying to defend himself.

“You put a fetter around my knee!” Kazuna shouted, not letting go of Ohno’s arm.

“Only because you wanted to leave so soon!” Sami protested.

Ohno left Kazuna to Masa’s care and planted himself in front of his brother.

“Okay, enough! Now, you’re going to give his clothes back and let go of my friend. Understood?” The doctor said in a ferrous tone. 

“Or what?” Sami answered back cheekily. 

As his sole answer, Ohno went up the few steps that led to Sami’s throne and whispered something to his ear. Sami’s face color faded to white as his eyes widened.

“Do we understand each other?” Ohno asked his brother, who nodded quickly.

“But I’m afraid I don’t have his clothes anymore…” Sami said in a low voice.

Ohno sighed and turned his back on him. 

“It’s okay, we’ll take him as he is now. And I warn you: don’t you ever try to kidnap my friends ever again. Understood?”

Sami nodded making a cute angry face.

“Okaaaaaay. No touching Arashi’s hot guys. I got it”. 

Ohno couldn’t help but to smile. Jun and Masa took Kazuna by both arms and the four of them went back to the Arashi, where a ‘very happy to see Kazuna again’ Sho run to give him the tightest hug of all times. Nino was also delighted to see Kazuna again, but before everything got too emotional, he wanted to make sure of a few things first.

“Why were you at Sami’s?” Nino asked.

“I… wanted some information” Kazuna blushed.

“On what? If you don’t mind me asking” Jun asked softly. 

Kazuna remained silent for a few minutes before answering the question. Then, he lowered his shoulders and fixed his look on his feet.

“I wanted to know about the whereabouts of the Arashi… I… I wanted to find you and…”

Nino stepped forward and put a hand on Kazuna’s shoulder.

“You just needed to call, you know?”

“I… I know… It’s just that after all I said about wanting to make my own way and living alone as any other human… I just couldn’t find the right words to say that I… that I wanted to come back. That I felt lonely… that I missed you all”.

Nino sketched a wide smile and hugged Kazuna lifting him from the ground.

“Well, you see, there’s nothing as human-like as that, you know”.

“Nino! Hey! Didn’t you say it gave you the creeps to hug someone like yourself?” Kazuna managed to say even if he barely couldn’t breath.

“Shut up mini-me! I’ve missed you, brat!” Nino let go of Kazuna to look him in the eye with a warm smile on his lips. “Welcome home”.

Kazuna smiled back.

“I am home”.

 

_The End_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finished! ^o^
> 
> Thank you VERY much for reading and liking my fic. I originally started this one because I wanted to try to write something light and short in English. Well... it didn't turn out as light as I pretended, and by far, not as short as I had thought. But I just couldn't stop writing about this crew once I started to do so!  
> I hope you enjoyed the story :) 
> 
> Until next time~ ^^

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you're liking my stories! :)
> 
> Some extra links for you regarding my works:   
> [Twitter account for updates (for both ao3 and my blog)](https://twitter.com/kumorinochi_fic)  
> [Spanish: Blog con todos mis fics en español: Kumorinochi Stories](https://kumorinochi.wordpress.com)


End file.
